Luxor and Sailing on the Nile

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Day 6 and 7 - Feluccas on the Nile and Luxor

Today we began two days of sailing on a fairly traditional Felucca. The hull is of steel and a canopy covers ¾ of the boat. Felucca sailing is a great way to unwind. We all had 10 or 12 bottles of Stella Beer on ice and it was with great restraint that the lads held out until 1pm before lifting the first bottle. There is not a lot to do on a Felucca and the scenery is mile after mile of low lying Nile Floodplains. At 4.30pm I gave the Egyptian Whisky a try out, at 5pm I gave the rest of the Egyptian Whisky away to the Felucca crew. They were very pleased considering I had also given them 4 of my beers.
Happy are those that receive the gift of Vat 20 and beer.

By this point in our tour most of us had experienced some discomfort with Gastro and vomiting so I was not looking forward to a night on the Felucca as there are no toilets. I lost track of how many times I made the trip ashore over both nights. Luckily I was fairly settled during the day. The second morning I was looking forward to sunrise and I lay awake at dawn until it was time to get some photos. It was beautiful sunrise with the sun rising behind the Feluccas. I was in a perfect spot but without my camera. It had been locked away in the ships cupboard the night before and I wasn’t sure which blanket to kick to get it unlocked.

Shortly after sun up we cast off and pushed out into the Nile current to drift and row the final 2kms to disembark, followed by 3 hours driving on the Truck to Luxor.

Luxor is well know for Karnak temple, The Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Hatshepsut.

If you weigh less than 80Kg you can take a ride to the Valley of the Kings on a donkey or alternately for the heavy boys, which was most of us you can take a bus. Sean, Monica and I chose instead to go to the Temple of Pharaoh Hatshepsut who was a female Pharaoh who wore a beard. Most of what I had seen so far of the historic sites are over commercialized and Hatshepsuts Temple was no exception. The visitor centre had a few black and white photographs with almost no text descriptions. Exiting to a barren bus park you are offered a bus ride (you pay extra) to the base of the temple. We chose to walk. It is an impressive structure and there are many caves and tomb like cuttings into the surrounding cliffs. There really was not a lot of the temple available for viewing apart from a single inner courtyard. There were signs directing us to the exit which just happened to take you past about 30 shops in a shopping arcade.

In the evening we took a small motor launch to the west Bank of the Nile for dinner at a Hotel Buffet. It was quite a nice evening and then back to the basic hotel for an early night as we would have a reasonably early start the next day.

Day 10
This was to be our longest day in the truck exceeding 6 hours over fairly good roads but limited to 60kms per hour. Just south of Hurghada which was to be our destination for the night we were met by another Oasis Overland truck driven by Kevin and Haley on the reverse route to ours. Kevin and Haley was the crew of the truck when Sean and Kate did this same journey last April. We gave Haley a jar of Vegemite and some photos from Kate to be delivered to the Luxor Orphanage.

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Comments

[Rose]

Sailing!
I am rather jealous that you went sailing - and I am jealous that you are enjoying the sunshine while I am shivering in the wind, freezing cold and rain. Much love. See you in Venice.

[Paul John Barrow]

nice pictures
worht seeing twice :-)