Aswan to Edfu by felucca

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We arrived in Luxor this afternoon after 3 days and 3 nights on a felucca, sailing between Aswan and just outside Edfu Village. We had a great trip despite my initial misgivings about dealing with a man called Captain Washington and travelling on a single decked boat for 3 days, or more importantly, sleeping, on a barely covered deck with no heating and also no toilet facilities. The Egyptian winter may be mild but it still gets pretty chilly at night ( although the daytime temperatures are perfect - sunny but cool).

The felucca is a wide-bottomed, single deck boat with a very large distinctive sail and no canopy. When we get to our moorings for the night, a light cotton sheet is wrapped around 3 sides of the deck and that's about it as far as cover or security goes.

We had a two man crew who basically did all the hard work and running after us whilst we lounged on the boat all day reading, chatting with our fellow travellers (honeymooners, Chris and Xin Mei)or, in Rob's case, trying to stay awake as the felucca glided along on the calm waters of the Nile. One was occasionally rudely interrupted by the noisy engines of the much, much bigger cruise boats which share the waters with the felucca but on the whole the hardest thing we had to do was to rouse ourselves for lunch/dinner or visit the odd temple or two. What a hard life!

It's a great way to see Egypt, particularly rural Egypt, and getting away from the hustle and bustle of cities to almost complete peace and quiet was bliss. There are many farms along the west bank of the Nile so it was very lush and green for most of the journey on one side of the river whilst it was brown and barren on the other. And for you bird-watching folk, there is excellent bird life on the Nile. We saw herons, egrets, pelicans, kingfishers and others that we know not their names. We also visited mango and sugar plantations and were invited to tea by some farm workers where there was a lot of mad gesturing to make up for our lack of Arabic. Mental note to make more effort with learning some Arabic phrases.

On our last night, we pulled into our felucca captain's village - all orchestrated of course. He very kindly invited the 4 of us ( to meet his 2 wives and about a dozen of his 16 children. We also had dinner in his mudbrick house which overlooked the Nile and met another dozen of his various relations and kin. Captain Hamami was very hospitable and, although not wealthy by Egyptian standards, was extremely generous, putting on a fantastic feast for us. He even had one of his sons stand just outside the door holding a huge mug of warm water and a bar of soap so that we could wash our hands after we'd had dinner. It was quite a special evening and a nice way to end our time with him and Hamada.

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Photos

Sunset on the Nile
Everyone say, 'Aaaahhh.....'

Capt'n Hash
Many of the felucca captains like to have a bit of what they call the 'green salad'