Egypt part 2 - Aswan and the felucca experience

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MONDAY 6th APRIL - ARRIVAL INTO ASWAN

Woke up at about 5:30am or so having had an ok nights sleep on the seater train. At around 7am we got given our breakfast boxes. Keeping in mind that they had been sitting out all night long, they contained yoghurt. I don't think anyone ate their yoghurt, most people stuck to the mushy pastries and bread and juice. The steward person came and collected them (not an On theGo rep) and next thing we saw was all the polystyrene wraps and cling film wraps being throw out the window of a moving train. Everyone that saw it pretty much had the same reaction - what? followed by wondering if that always happened given that On the Go pride themselves on 'responsible tourism.' I should note here that when we mentioned it to one of the On the Go guides a few days later he was horrified and said we should have told him and they wouldn't have tipped him and would have said something. Hopefully next time they will keep an eye out.

Got to the hotel at around 10am or so I guess and were lucky enough to be able to check in. Had the quickest shower on record and headed straight to the pool where we spent the next few hours baking until it was time to have a real shower and lunch (chicken burgers on the terrace).

From there it was an excursion to the High Dam first of all - where we had to go through a very odd security check. Basically the bus pulled up outside a hut and we all filed through, and walked back to pretty much where the bus was, not like there was a security cordon anywhere. After that it was onto Philae Temple which was the first temple on the trip and was quite impressive. Then it was onto the markets for some friendly barter with the locals trying to make us buy their crap. Most people had decided to go on the organised group dinner show thing but Kylie and I had decided to do our own thing - we ended up being joined by Kate, Jo and Scott. Had a nice dinner at a touristy restaurant just a few minutes from the markets before getting the local ferry back to our hotel, which was on an island I might add. By that stage it was pretty late so Kylie and I had a nice relaxing beer in the wind on the terrace before heading back to the room, discovering 'Speed' was on TV and watching that before sleep.

TUESDAY 7th APRIL - ASWAN to FELUCCA

Up relatively early for breakfast before chilling by the pool for a few hours again. From there it was a shower (knowing it was going to be our last shower for a few days) and checking out at midday. From there we had an hour or so while we had our felucca briefing and grabbed our bags and went down to where our 7 feluccas were. For those of you who don't know, a felucca is a traditional Egyptain boat. They sleep 10-12 people, and had a flat deck where you sleep, eat and everything in between. There are no toilets and no showers, and are crewed by two people. There is no engine, so you are pretty much in the hands of the wind.

We were lucky to only have 10 people on our boat - which was called 'Moon Shadow' and had a flag with Bob Marley on it. We listened to Bob Marley for the first hour or so too. We even had a 'Captain Weed' and a 'Magic Room.' Our crew were nice enough with decent enough English. When we first set off we got served the first of our meals onboard - consisting of dips, pita bread and some more dips.

As we all set off at pretty much the same time we had some close calls with the other boats. Essentially the feluccas go from one side of the river to another in a zig zag type pattern. Some boats were zigging while others were zagging and there werea few times where we knocked into other boats, but it wasn't like we were going very fast to start with.

After about two hours sailing we discovered we were done for the day when we pulled into land. Apparently the winds had been pretty good and as none of us had requested a toilet break it really didn't take us much time. However, having said that, we now all had to venture and find a bush for our first stop. The amount of litter there was appalling. All throughout the bushes on the side of the Nile there was polystyrene and cans and everything you could possibly think of.

After we had survived the first one, everyone cracked open the beers and drinks for dinner, which was pita bread, with some meat and vege and rice. I think all 7 On the Go feluccas had the same thing, and it appeared that some boats cooked and prepared some things while others did other bits, so the food was pretty much all shared I think.

Once it got dark we headed up to a Nubian village where I think we were more of a tourist attraction to the kids than they were to us. They had laid out maps for us to sit on while we watched the On the Go reps do a bit of a skit/ performance, played with the kids, smoked sheesha, got taught some belly dance moves. We also had the opportunity to have a look at where they lived and some of the girls got henna tattoos. Oh, and the best thing - got to use their toilet. Keeping in mind that there were about 80 of us of course... and two toilets.

After a very enjoyable hour or two at the Nubian House we headed back to bed on the felucca.

WEDNESDAY 8th APRIL - SAILING DOWN THE NILE

While we we basically spending two nights on the Felucca and two days, we were actually only going to be travelling 30km or so, so not very far at all. The people that upgraded to the Nile Cruise however, were sailing much further and doing something completely different, for a lot higher a cost I might add!!

I woke up early and just chilled while everyone else woke up a bit later. We didn't actually take off for some time, we had breakfast, same food, with some cake and jam added for good luck, plus egg and cheese triangles, before setting sail. It was slightly rougher weather and we had a few things roll around on deck (mostly sleeping bags). A few times it also looked like we were going to tip we were that close to the water on one side!! We also had the pleasure of watching our crew tilt the sail thing so that we could fit underneath a bridge.

After about two hours of sailing we stopped for lunch and a swim in the Nile. You hear all sorts of stories about bugs and bacteria and while I am sure some of them are true, I was also fairly confident that a travel company wouldn't take you somewhere and encourage you to swim knowing you might end up with a bug. Essentially we ended up at a place withmassive sand dunes, local kids playing in the sand, and fast flowing water that was actually quite deep. I think most people ended up going in the water to, which was cold but not freezing given it was sunny and hot. The sand when you walked on it abslutely burned, yet the local kids were burying themselves in it. Guess they are used to it. Lunch consisted of much the same thing, fellafel, dips, pita bread. I was starting to never want to see pita bread again!!

After having had about a two hour stop, we set sail. This time our captain had challenged one of the other captains to a race, which he then set about making sure we did. Wasn't quite as pleasant a sail as the day before, but fun nonetheless.

At about 5pm we stopped where a lot of other feluccas were also stopping for the evening. Wasa nice enough area with plenty of tree coverage. They set up a make shift toilet for us, but aftera few hours we all discovered you were better off going to find your own tree - 80 people using one makeshift short drop toilet is not a pleasant experience.

After dinner - chicken, veg, dips and yet some more pita bread, we had a few drinks on deck before some of the Captains set up a bonfire and started playing music. After a while people got up and started dancing, most of the captains were singing and playing drums, etc. And then it was time for the belly dance competition, which I think was rigged but was funny to watch nonetheless.

Then at around midnight I guess we were told to get back on our boat so that it could cross the river to where we would get picked up in the morning.

It was later on the tour that I discvered that some things had been stolen from one of the other feluccas. A (I think American) couple had left quite a bit of cash in a bag on the deck and it was missing the next morning. Both of their crew were the only two who weren't at the bonfire, and were apparently arrested. The people on that felucca gave the money for their drinks and the tip money to the couple who had had their things stolen. While it is obviously terrible and I doubt that On the Go will use that particular boat again, I do think the couple were silly to have left about 300 egyptian pounds unattended on the deck of a boat, that is a lot of money to Egyptians.

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