Nile River Cruise – Day 2

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Edfu

Another early day, as we met our tour guide, Samy, at 6:45am. We grabbed a horse drawn carriage and heading to the Temple of Horus, the falcon god. This is considered the best preserved of all the Egyptian temples, having been buried beneath the sand until it was rediscovered in the 19th Century. It was actually built by the Romans starting in 237 B.C, and finished 180 years later. We toured the temple for an hour, and I unfortunately saw more destruction of the carved reliefs by the Coptic Christians; however the temple was still plenty impressive.

One the way back to the boat, I had a chance to buy a decent cotton robe for myself…but passed on the head scarf. I have come to appreciate that there is a premium to be paid for being an American. Whereas my Taiwanese friends can get two bottles of water for 4L.E, my price is 10L.E. for one. Originally, the starting price for the robe I bought was 150L.E., I offered 20L.E. The price then went to 350L.E. (about $65), for which I replied that the guy was trying to rob me, since he started at 150L.E. He claimed he had started at 350…but I knew better. I started yelling at him that he obviously had dollar signs in his eyes, since I am American. We finally agreed on 35L.E. for the robe, although a non-American could have probably gotten it for 20L.E. C’est la vie.

The rest of the day was spent on the ship working on the blog, reading, eating, and lounging around the boat, since we didn’t have anymore landings for the day. It got really windy right after we departed from Edfu, so we couldn't really hang out on the sundeck. We then pulled over to boat for 3-4 hours. I later learned the reason for the wind and temporary stop was because a big sand storm was going on up ahead.

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Comments

[Rodney]

Memmmmories! :)
Oh man....reading you stories make my so yearn to go back to Egypt. I absolutely loved it there. Regards, The AWOL Bentley Student Who Wouldn't Have Hesitated to Make the Same Decision Again :-)