Aswan and the Nile

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Hello all,

Didn't sleep much on the train last night, we were all in reclining seats with plenty of legroom but we didn't try to sleep until after 1am and then it was still too noisy and uncomfortable. The train conductor woke us all up three times to inspect our tickets!! Still we must have slept at some point as when we were all awake this morning Graham told us that a man had come in and sat down and stared at us all for awhile. Creepy but not unusual apparantly, we get stared at quite a lot with all sorts of comments thrown at us (mostly 'welcome to egypt', 'what is your name', and 'you are a beautiful lady'😉. You would have thought that Egyptians would be quite used to foreign tourists by now, and we are all covered up!!

Arrived into Aswan at 11am and it was immediately clear we were in another Egypt. It is a lot warmer than Cairo, the people are darker and dressed more conservatively (being so close to the border with Sudan) and all we could see was the Nile flanked by palm trees and desert.

We were given lunch at the hotel on arrival before we were given some downtime, which is why I am here at an internet cafe!! Loving it so far. We are going on a tour to a Nubian village later and we will be given dinner with a local family. Early start tomorrow at 3am to see the ancient (and moved) ruins of Abu Simbel.

Can't wait!!
Orla

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