180808-190808 - Egypt - Felucca

180808 – Egypt – Felucca

This morning started with quite a nice sleep in. After a breakfast of pancakes on the room we all checked out and walked down to the Nile with our packs.
Emam had arranged a very large Felucca called the “Bob Marley” with a large covered cushioned area. Being late to get onto the boat, I was stuck on the sunny side. Feeling quite smug that it was already 9-10AM and I would therefore be in the shade all afternoon, I hunkered down and started to bathe myself in sunscreen.
The boat departed.

WOW

I could seriously have done this for a couple of days.

The entire deck was covered with a cloth roof and padded with a giant matress. We joked about and dangled our feet in the water till lunch time (no crocodiles on this side of the high-dam). Lunch was vegetarian and provided for us by the crew, very tasty. Toilet stops were frequent enough and consisted of ducking behind a tree and digging a hole. We stopped to swim a couple of times in the cool Nile river, floating about in the strong currents before the mad-dash back to the boat to dry off before the next leg. The afternoon was spent laughing over the cross-word in a trashy celebrity mag and watching the amazing scenery float by.
One major win of the day was convincing Optus to enable Global Roaming on my phone, I was finally able to check my messages and felt much less guilty about phoning home.
We camped for the night alongside about 4-5 other feluccas on a small island in the middle of the river. The island was a little fragrant, but we assembled a toilet tent with seat and everything, so everybody was happy. Dinner was on the boat and then a camp-fire was setup for drumming and dancing by the local Nubians (mainly the crew from another boat). There were a couple of other tours, the GAP one looked like lots of young people. We found out the next morning that the lyrics the drummers had been singing had been profoundly and disgustingly lewd and degrading, which was the only thing to spoil the memory of the night.
I wandered off to bed early, after starring at an amazing full moon that looked different to the moon we see at home. Falling asleep, we heard Sarah singing opera in a most fantstic voice, applauded by the howling of every dog within a mile radius who seemed a little less appreciative of the fine-arts.

190808
We woke up with the sun this morning and broke camp. Breakfast consisted of hot drinks and pancakes, my preferance over the steady stream of boiled eggs.
We sailed for a little while and then the crew rowed us to shore, boarded a bus and took off to join the next convoy. We had decided to go to the temples at Edfu and Carnack for today, tonight we would stay at a hotel in Luxor.
The temple at Edfu was ASTOUNDING. It is incredibly well preserved and IN ITS ORIGINAL LOCATION. There is something truly epic about it. Being the second largest temple in Egypt, it was also very popular, swarming with tourists. I was still able to wander through a couple of sections in solitude and attached myself to some of the tours for explanations of the more interesting features.
Tourism Police where EVERYWHERE in Egypt. They are meant to be the first point of contact for tourists who are in trouble and can be found in number at any temple or tourist site and have road-blocks about every 20-70km on major roads, depending on the part of the country. Every hotel in every city seems to have at least one at the doorway. Security checks may vary from a single officer with a metal detector arch that is switched off, there may be a functional metal detector and bag-searchs or an x-ray machine. Some hotels have officers permenantly positioned outside in little concrete columns (think a concrete pipe that is standing upright and reaches to chest-hieght) or lounging behind a bullet-proof panel complete with little window of ballistic glass, mounting brackets for AK47s and the whole thing can roll about on wheels.
Road blocks vary from a boom gate to an obsticle course of concrete filled 44gallon drums, with stretches of “stinger” style tire chains lieing along side the road. The scary ones are more simple, with a little concrete pillbox about 20 feet off the ground (guard gets put up there and the ladder may or may not get taken away till the end of his shift) and a barrel poking out of a window, a boom-gate surrounded by concrete blocks and an armoured car tucked just out of site but lined up with the middle of the checkpoint.
Being highly visible and everywhere, the presence of the Tourism Police offers a great deal of comfort to the various tourists and undoubtably projects us from locals that would otherwise prey on travelers. Often taking advantage of the situation themselves, a suitable “tip” can open up doors and oportunities depending on location. Supposedly, “talking” to a Tourism Cop at Fille could get you a private tour of the upper floors of the temple (unfortunately, I was a little short of egyptian pounds to facilitate such a discussion on the day). At Edfu, a gentleman in a nice suite with a machine gun by his side took two of us through some of the more crowded areas of the temple and pointed out bits of artwork that the ore popular tours were not including. I'm not sure if the “undercover” Tourism Police are meant to be intentionally so conspicuous, they just appeared to be another level of security for the benefit of the tourists. At the least, so many police being so visible will most definitely remove almost all of the opportunities for travellers to get into any real trouble (unless you really went hunting for it).
Back on the bus and a couple of hours later, we arrived in Luxor. The ancient capital of Egypt has an impressive temple complex called Carnack. Here it stuck me more than ever, that we were wandering through what used to be the most excluded, sacred locations of ancient egypt. Taking photos of the holiest of holys, inner sanctums that only the Highest Priest in Egypt and the Pharro would have been allowed to set foot in. 3000 years ago, we would have been executed for even looking at these places.
The temple complex at Carnack is VERY large, housing 20,000 priests during its peak. Unfortunately, much of the temple has destroyed or lieing in ruin. There are still some impressive features like the hall of 134 columns, the Oblisk wieghing 300 tonnes, we all walked around the scarab statue 1, 3, 5 or 7 times dependiing on if we wanted health, wealth marriage or children.
Back at the hostel, many of us slept or did internet. Most of us went and swam in the pool on the roof :D For dinner, 6 of us broke form and went to a british run Indian restaurant for something OTHER than egyptian. Expensive and in small portions, IT WAS GLORIOUS!!! I'd dosed myself for the Nasty-Butt, which had gotten a real attitude following the last day of relief. Those of us with Nasty-Butts went to a nearby pharmacy to restock our supples. Here was a suprise... there are next to no prescriptions in Egypt. There was a sign behindthe counter advertising “WE SELL EVERYTHING OVER COUNTER ANY QUANTITY” and they weren't joking. I was offered everything from Viagra to Vallium at an average of $6AU a pack. Having got my tummy-tablets (and ONLY tummy-tablets), restocked water and supplies, we went back to the hotel.