Still in De Nile

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Alright, I just couldn't resist with the title ! After a very, very cold night, we were woken up early by the call to prayers from the nearby village. When I awoke a short time later, Mahmod was already ashore drinking his tea in the morning sunlight. Ramadon returned from the local village, after spending the night there, with a fresh canister of propane for the stove. Our breakfast of consisted of tea, flat bread, fig jam, and hard boiled eggs.

The river was calm and seemed sort of frozen in time until a garbage bag floated past. I found out later most of the cruise boats just throw their garbage directly into the river. Lovely.

Shortly after we set sail, the wind strengthened and we were making good time. The card games with Joshua became increasingly difficult with the cards threatening to blow over board. Benjamin continued to read his books, seemingly oblivious to the scenes of Egyptian daily life passing before him.

Sometime later, we find ourselves along a narrow stretch of the river where we are forced to do short tacks back and forth. In several spots, we pass larger cargo feluccas being loaded up with heavy stones. We are also passed by low barges being towed by tugboats in addition to the usual collection of tour boats.

Further still, the river widens out in front of us. With the reddish sand along the shoreline,green palm trees, and while felucca sails, from a distance it looks eerily like the Georgian Bay's granite shoreline and pine trees back in Canada. The train tracks, which we traveled on a few short days ago, are now close to the river and we see numerous trains go past.

As we head still further south, there seems to be less and less civilization and the cliffs, which have been close to the banks, recede into the distance.

Around lunch time, we stop on a grassy little island where cows and donkeys are grazing. A few stray dogs mill around, looking like they are on important business and paying little attention to us. While we watch, a group of boys about Benjamin age ride their donkeys to the river and go for a swim.

After lunch, we spend most of the evening beached on the island getting school work done. One of Joshua's art activities is to do a painting so he uses the scene before him as the inspiration for a landscape complete with sand and palm trees.

We set sail again in the late afternoon, but only sail for about an hour more before we stop again at the shoreline. Above the bank, you can see that we are close to a small farm. The sandy land has rows of deep furrows cut into it small green plants along the bottom every few feet. Mahmod later tells us that this is a crop of watermelons, recently planted.

After dinner aboard the boat, we settle into our on board tent for the evening putting on even more clothing, while Ramadon lights a small fire onshore. This is to be our last night aboard, but Mahmod asks us if we want to take another 3 days to get all the way to Luxor. As much as this would be interesting, two days has been sufficient and we make plans to be picked up ashore tomorrow morning. Benjamin and I spend the evening watching “Charlie & the Chocolate Factory” on the ipod.

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