Blogs from Aswan, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa - page 10

Day 60: Monday, January 25, 2010. Aswan, Egypt Per the Contiki Egypt brochure: "Arriving in Aswan midmorning we view the unfinished obelisk and visit the High Dam. We sail on a felucca to the Botanical Gardens before joining our cruise ship for a sumptuous lunch." We pull into Aswan around 8:30 am and hop on another tour bus. First we head to the High Dam and it was pretty impressive to see how they control the Nile River. We then pass by the a monument that looks like a giant Lotus flower which commemorates the friendship between Russia & Egypt (they helped build the dam.) We get to the Unfinished Obelisk and rock quarry. This was going to be the tallest obelisk ever made and it was being made under the order of Queen Hatshepsut. Unfortunately, ... read more

Following Ivan's speedy recovery (nothing like a good old fashioned home remedy of lemon and garlic) we board the Felucca. The boat takes over an hour to depart, however we aren't left bored due to great friends we meet along the way. This includes Wilson and Susan, brother and sister currently residing in Hong Kong and New York, both growing up in San Francisco. The other couple is Marco and Linda, both from Montreal. We sail to this nice Nubian village and get to meet some local kids and walk around the village. We finally make it to the first destination of the evening, an inlet inhabited by some camels. Unfortunately the boat becomes sand logged that night and instead of falling asleep listening to the gentle melody of waves lapping our boat, we instead fall ... read more

I had been feeling nervous about flying Egypt Air. I had images of a seriously old aircraft held together by pieces of sticky tape and string, goats sitting on passengers knees and chickens escaping from wooden crates before flying up the aisle and trapping their wings in the dangling oxygen masks. Okay, I now realise that my ridiculous little imagination was doing some serious overtime. Our Egypt Air domestic flights were absolutely fine. Nice new planes, a drinks service, a business class lounge at Cairo airport (okay, so we upgraded on two sectors - had to get away from those damn chickens) and even an inflight magazine. And the views? Amazing. I spent every flight with my eyes glued to the window. The desert was an endless and beautiful place from above. The dark, blue Nile ... read more

Arrived in Aswan yesterday morning (friday). Friday and Saturday are the weekend here, plus Aswan is super laid back compared to Cairo so we are really enjoying our relaxing time along the Nile here. After arriving at the train station we saw the unfinished Obelisk, which is a huge cut stone that never got removed because of a crack that developed. From their we saw the huge Nile dams, Lake island and the temple of Isis on Philae island, which dates to 200-300 BC. We then checked in our Nile cruiseship where we'll be the next 3 nights and days.... read more

Peace is certainly not upon me in Luxor. It would seem not all of Africa's top predators operate at dusk. The Egyptian streets are infested with voracious, hyena-like touts, and the Luxorian variety surely cannot be matched for cunning, capacity for deceit, or infuriating insistence by any of its Egyptian or even worldwide counterparts. I am not exaggerating when I say that almost every word spoken to us in our three days here is insincere and we are frequently subjected to outright and shameless lies. In researching this trip I had heard a lot of accounts about how fed up travellers can get with Egypt, and I thought to myself, 'surely it can't be that bad'. Generally I’ve found it to be wearisome but not unmanageable. However, Luxor really would test the patience of Buddha. It ... read more