We were on a boat for a day but it was yet to start.
Finally we made it to the boat from Abu Simbel in time for lunch. We went straight to the dining room and it was full! The food was good. There was enough vegetarian options for me that worked inspite of my food allergies. Plain pita bread, yogurt, Vegetable side dish like a sambar, white rice, salads, roasted potatoes! It was enough to keep me going over the next few days.
After lunch we made our way to the rooftop to watch the boat start! Initially it was slow going but the boat picked up pace in heavy winds and we all enjoyed the cruise.
When we came back to our room the towel art reminded us of a cruice to Mexico a long long time ago.
We dozed off later in the evening. We were told that the boat would dock around 5 PM and we were to meet at the reception area at 5! The boat made it earlier than that!
A short video of the first leg of the cruise..
We were going to get off and visit yet another interesting temple..
We slept on the boat overnight and woke up at 3:30 AM. The group including kids were all assembled at 4 in the van and the drive started to Abu Simbel from Aswan docks.
Most of us dozed off in the first hour of the drive as it was still dark outside. A little past 6AM the van slowed down for a tea and restroom stop in the middle of the desert! It was good we had some local currency. Restrooms also need local currency for the two sheets of toilet paper they hand you. The restrooms themselves were well maintained but the cigarette smoke was difficult to deal with. Wanted to come home and check what percent of the population smoked and what lung cancer rates were in Egypt. A healthy population is a good idea for any country. With kids (who looked 10 or under) smoking everywhere, it cannot be a good thing!
Enough with the vent. We came out of the shack, ate a packed breakfast that was given to us at the boat, took pictures of a glorious sunrise and kept driving.
lens flares on iPhones are tricky. was trying to teach a class to the group on how to avoid them.. this is as good as it got. More lessons are required!
We went past a small city which was mostly engineers supporting local agriculture in the desert. It was a massive project covering acres growing everything from basic vegetables to maize.
Eventually after 4 hours we made it to Abu Simbel. We got an explanation of how the temple was going to go underwater with the new dam and it took 10 years to literally cut the original temple block by block and reassemble it above the same hill.
The original temple was perfectly oriented to have the sun come through and shine on the main shrine on two days of the year. The new moved temple up the hill still had that going for it. The original temple was a marvel. Moving something like that in the 70's within a 10 year span with global support was impressive!
The minute you walk around the hill and come across the gigantic statues, it just takes your breath away!
There was still color in the murals on the walls and ceiling. Given we were close to Dec 21st, the sun was angling in and lighting up the entire temple in a golden glow inside!
A few pictures of the insides of two temples here..
A video highlight of the Abu Simbel visit.. the video captures both the sunrise and the beauty and scale of the temples!
We had spent a litle over two hours at the temple including a restroom stop and some time at the gift shop buying magnets. Then it was time to start the 4 hour drive back.
It was a race and there were no stops on the way. We had to be back at the boat before 2. Lunch was at 1:30 but the boat was finally going to start moving at 2PM.
We made it at 1:30! I had enough time to run to the market across the docks with Walid and grab some more large water bottles before we started sailing..
We were surprisingly refreshed and were not as tired as we thought we would be! We were all looking forward to moving in the boat on the Nile!
We had reached out cruise boat and had a nice lunch. The plan was to take a nap and do an evening activity. It was optional and 4 of us opted to do it. It was 20 USD per person to do a boat ride on the Nile to the other side past Elephanine island to visit a Nubian village.
Our guide Walid, pretty much begged me not to miss it. He said "you are a photographer! the sunset here is just plain amazing! don't miss it!". So off we went. We started at ~4:30. Walid had told us that it will be at least 2-3hours to go, spend time at the village and come back to the boat by the 7:30 dinner time.
Walid was spot on! This was the most amazing sunset we had seen with the boats, the river and the different types of huts in the villages we crossed.
Here is a slideshow..
There were lot of pictures on the boat ride to and fro.. some highlights and "people pictures"
We got fantastic photos!
Most of these Nubians (folks from south of Egypt and Sudan) who are generally dark skinned were displaced because of the dam. They had a rich social culture of large families that lived in groups. Their houses always had a central courtyard with rooms being added as folks got married. A modular mud house structure with igloo type roofs. They put sand in the open courtyard.
there were beautiful murals on the walls..
Almost all of them had crocodiles for pets as the crocs were their main god.
Walid told us that Crocs were their god(Sobek) for a reason. They would watch how high the crocs went to lay their eggs on the sand banks. Higher they went, more the expected flood for the year a few months later. The crocodiles were an early flood warning system for them. They saved lives. They were worth protecting! They are fed "bread"! they were veggie crocs and were mostly docile and played with the kids. We shopped around the market and were welcomed into a home for tea and coffee. The family was nice. Their kids had a 20 year old croc and a 2 year old baby. I was allowed to hold and pet the baby croc which was just wandering around our coffee table!
it was 1 USD to pet the croc and take pictures. It was free to let it wander around near us!
After that we were asked to check out the view from the roof.. it was like a west mambalam rooftop per the group! The village roads (sand) and the cute shops and fast running race camels made for some amazing experience.
We said bye to the village and went back to our cruise boat watching the reflected lights from the village in the Nile waters..
(our friends were the reason for this photo.. wife did the art direction, husband took the photo)
It was a spectacular evening! We were glad we went on this. . .
Video highlights of this "optional" but should have been a compulsory trip!
After this we stopped at the local Aswan market to get some water bottles (the cruise was charging for large water bottles). Later we found out that the two regular bottles in the rooms every day were free. However there was no way to make hot water for tea in the rooms. They did give us hot water at the bar but we had to tip the guys who gave us hot water at the end of the trip(that was okay!).
We were informed by an apprehensive Walid that we leave the following morning at 4AM and he has set up a wake up call for the group! Again a collective groan went up. There was going to be a long drive in the morning!
When we went back to the cruise, my head was splitting because of jet lag. I dozed off and skipped dinner.. apparently they had made Dal just for the desi familes who had joined that day on the cruise (it has a 200 people capacity and was pretty much full!). There was 8 of us and a group of 6 from Mumbai and another quiet desi couple.
