Felucca down the Nile

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Another iconic Egyptian thing is to take a cruise down the Nile, and I am not one to break with tradition!

The day before our cruise, we took a two hour camel safari, and two hours was quite enough! They are not the most stable creatures to ride, and give elephants a run for thir money in the bumpiness stakes! But still lots of fun, especially as I had one of the tallest fastest camels, so kicked ass in our informal camel race. Sweet.

The next morning we hopped onto the feluccas, on which we had two nights. As we had a large group, we had two feluccas, and tied up together and drifted for meals. For those who haven't been on them, it's basically a large, wide sailboat with one large mattress, enough space for 12-14 people to sleep on, with a small cabin up front for the crew (Captain Hash and his fellow nubian reggae souls). There's not a lot to do but relax, sleep and watch the world go by during the day. And for the curious, we had frequent comfort stops at strategic points along the Nile - girls really have to go to the WC together here, you get used to ignoring those squatting next to you!

At night we tied up alongside the bank and had dinner and partied together. The first night was relatively sedate, a few quiets and sleep, but the second night the crew got out the drums and we had a full on dancing, singing party, which is an interesting thing to do when you only have a small deck to dance on.

On the afternoon of our second day, some of us had cabin-fever and went ashore to the camel markets and to chill out in a local town. Believe it or not, they have tuk-tuks as local taxis around there. Our tuk-tuk happened to be a young guy (about 17-18) who gloried in his large rear speakers, arabic pop and flashing lights. And also his accelerator... At the market we got to ride camels bareback - if you think a saddled camel is difficult, wait until you try a grumpy camel without anything to pad the spine. Once is enough for that!

Then we created a sensation in the local town when we went for coffee and sheesha. There was a sudden traffic jam on the road as every man and his dog drove past to see the strange people. Down in this part of Eqypt there is a large Nubian influence, so my attempt at a tan went nowhere towards making me look less white and blonde to the locals, and 10 of us Aussies and Kiwis together created havoc. The trip back to the felucca became less of a tour round the town as a 'lets show off the foreigners we have in our tuk-tuks'. Our doof-doof driver was calling ahead to his mates to come and see us - he was the lucky one with three european girls bopping along to his (very loud) music in the back and waving to all the locals. He earned a lot of street cred that day!

Getting off the felucca was sad, as it meant goodbye to relaxing days, but also a nice change as there is only so much lying down and singing to made up songs by stoned felucca captains that can be done...

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