160808-170808 - Egypt - Aswan

160808-170808 – Egypt - Aswan

I got up fairly early and started to go for a bit of a wander around the train. Fraser (now also named Scottish, Foxy-pants and Fergison) had crawled into the compartment at around 1 or 2AM, minus a few bottles of rum, and was still in a state somewhere between “embalmed” and “zombie”.
I sat in with Troy and Sarah when the breakfast cart came around, chuckling at the little green faces that slowly started to appear (seems like the bottles of rum were well shared).

We got off of the train around 8ish and straight onto a bus for the hostel. Airconditioning and wifi made for a pleasant reception. After dumping our gear, we had a group meeting and decided to do the optional side trip to Abu Simbel, a famous temple 3 hours to the North, and the temple at Fille which was just near by. The bus convoy for these would leave very early the next morning.
We had a little free time, so I went through the markets to buy some kind of head cover (got an arab style scarf at a rip-off price) and got some sunscreen at the nearby pharmacy.
A couple of us in the group came to the agreement over the next few days, that Aswan is what we imagined Cairo to be like. Here you are woken by the call to prayer, the traffic is MUCH lighter and the cars are in much better condition. The markets are more spacious and the vendors are somewhat more polite. Unfortunately, the range andd quality of fruit is somewhat less than in Cairo, but such compromises are acceptable.
For the rest of today, we went on a boat ride up the nile while a local guide explained the ancient and recent history of the region. The various islands and monuments, tombs on hilltops and the Old Cataract Hotel where Agethar Christie wrote Death on the Nile. We had a delicious lunch provided by the boat operator along with the most fantastic fresh mango juice. Because it was still the middle of the day, we chilled out at a riverside Nubian cafe. Paddling in the Nile and sipping iced-drinks, I think we all would have been happy to chill there for a few days :p
Once it had cooled a bit, we were back in the boat and went to the suitable stop for a camel ride.
Camels are certainly a disgruntled and complaining breed of creature, groaning and bellowing any and every time that they think they might be listened to. In all, I kind of enjoyed the camel ride. The locals had done my scarf up like Lawrence of Arabia along with John and Troy (got a couple of “wise men” photos). We rode about 15minutes out into the desert and took photos of the Monastary of Saint Simon (I think, might have been Samuel). If I'd had time this trip, I would have liked to have toured the old and new monastary.

Camel ride finished, we got the boat back and had dinner on one of the floating river-side restaraunt, taking photos of the felucca's floating through the sunset.

170808
This morning was a 3AM start, we were in the bus waiting at the convoy rendezvous point till nearly 430 and somewhat cranky before the 20 or so busses took off.
The rode to Abu Simbel was long and tiring, it was a minivan barely big enough for all of us and my nasty-butt was only just behaving itself considering how much imodium I'd taken.
Finally we arrived at the final resting place of the temple,
My cards had not been working for the last 24hours for some reason, so I was borrowing money off of Fraser for most of the day today. As a group we decided not to get a guide and just wandered through.
The temple at Abu Simbel originally lay in the middle of no-where, carved into the side of a mountain. The building of the great-dam and the associated flooding was more extensive that originally expected, so the temple had to be transplanted about 400 yards away and somewhat higher in order to prevent it having a watery grave of its own.
$40 million and several years later, the temple was assembled like a giant lego set on the hilltop where it now sits.
The temples are quite large an impressive, but something seems to have been lost in the moving. Much of the temple is impressively well preserved... but...
Anyways, it was worth the trip. Plenty of photos and exploring later, we were back on the bus. During the wait, I called the bank to find out what was going on with my card. A little success, but I was told they couldn't take all steps necessary as it was still a Sunday.
A long trip later, we were back near Aswan. We jumped into another motor boat and went to Fille. These temples had also been transplanted to escape the rising water. With a heavy roman and greek influence, this island was much more conducive with “exploring” rather than “touring” and nearly deserted, rather than over-crowded.
Back at the hostel, we had another group meeting to arrange the felucca for tomorrow. A couple of group members also growled at Emam for the cost of the Abu Simbel tour, some of the other people in the hostel had done the same as us and more for less than half the cost, on a much larger bus. A couple of the people wouldn't let it go and I felt quite bad for Emam, she'd been doing a great job for us but all 2 of these people could do was whine and complain..
Anyways, off to dinner on the water again and a couple of drinks later, everyone had chilled out a bit and decided it was time to have an early night.
The ATM finally worked today, so it was a good day :) I'm not the only one who had been having card troubles, so it appears to be the Egyptian network rather than an account problem.