A Day of Temples and Cruising the Nile

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Today is a great day, we spend much of the day cruising and then stop to see places on the way.

KOM OMBO

After breakfast we go to Kom Ombo Temple.

The temple again is enormous and there are so many tourists, I would hate to see these places in the high season. It’s the low season now because of the heat. But Salem explains the history of the building, the people that used it and how it all fits into history and then leaves us to explore on our own and take photos. It’s a nice way of doing it as when he is talking you are able to listen better because you are not distracted by having to take pictures before moving on.

They have built a deep pit with a tunnel that joined it to the Nile River. If you stand at one end looking across it, the well is shaped like their symbol for life. At one stage it was over 40 metres deep, now it’s about 35 metres and twice a week someone would go down and measure how high the river was. Inside the temple a calendar had been made and the information on the river height was added. Before the dams were built the Nile River used to flood twice a year, the ancients used the information collected and recorded on the calendar to prevent loss of crops. They were definitely thinkers and planners.

We’re back at the boat by 9:30am as we are sailing most of the day today.

TIME TO CRUISE

The boat is incredibly smooth and you can’t even tell that’s it’s moving. I guess it helps that its on a river and not the open ocean with a 4 meter swell…

In our room the house keeper had made a bird, maybe a peacock out of our towels and it was sitting on the bed looking at us as we entered our room - pretty cool we thought!

Tonight they are having a Galabia Party. This is the name of the dress/tunic that the men wear. So this afternoon we get our clothes for tonight. Salem helps Tim get his clothes and will do his headpiece tonight. I’ve got a sparkly number with coins etc hanging off it. It will be heaps of fun - although Tim is not looking forward to it, he doesn’t like fancy dress type things.

We go upstairs to the pool area and nab a spot right at the front of the boat. The breeze is beautiful and it’s really easy to kill some time, surprisingly with all the time we have spent in the sun in the incredible heat we have not even got a tinge of sunburn. Back home we would have been burnt to a crisp! Although I have seen some of the more fair skinned tourists looking a little red…

Cruising along, we get to see the farmers doing their thing, donkeys everywhere and even more tombs in the limestone hills. The strangest thing we’ve noticed coming here, especially after places like Tanzania is the lacking of animals. Apart from animals used for work, we’ve only seen a few small birds.

We go back to our room so Tim can catch up on the Soccer (and a little cat nap), unfortunately I don’t read the schedule given to us by Salem and wake Tim up an hour early for lunch - oops, sorry. He forgives me though!

EDFU TEMPLE

After lunch we go by horse and cart to see Edfu temple, there are so many carts that it almost resembles a miniature chariot race through the city as again, all the ships arrive at once and all the passengers are there to see the same thing. We try to find the healthiest looking horse, some of the horses are emaciated it makes you feel awful for them. The breeze is nice in the open cart.

The ride is interesting in itself just to have a close look at the town in the non tourist locations.

When we arrive, they have a parking lot of sorts for the horse and carts which is completely shaded. It’s good to see.

It was discovered in 1812 (they even inscribed it on the rock inside - official graffiti!), a replica of one of the carriages found was made and the original is in the Louvre Museum - if we remember by then, we will have to see the original….

The ceilings and some of the walls here have been stained from smoke from fires when the Christians hid here from the Romans. There is also a lot of damage done to the pictures caused by the Christians destroying them.

A guard started to show us a few extra things, like the detailed paintings on the ceilings, a small window that allows the sun to shine on a particular engraving at 6am each day and also a tunnel tucked away from the main part that still to this day has water that flows into it.

DINNER, DANCING AND GALABRIA’S

Back to the boat, bit of a rest then it’s time to get ready for tea. We stick our heads out the door to see if we can see anyone else dressed up. The Room Service guys see us and rush in to help Tim do his head gear. So now he’s all dressed and ready to go. My outfit has no degree of difficulty to it!

We’re both like 10 year olds and worried that no-one else will be in the traditional dress and we’ll walk in and look like idiots! But we suck it up and walk in. All the waiters are dressed traditionally (there are no women working here at all) and there is quite a few guests dressed up, there are a few who didn’t know about it. After tea a lot of those people went and arranged outfits. I’m glad we wore ours - Tim looked great, an Egyptian man just looking for his camel!

Salem said that he had something special arranged for us for our honeymoon. And tonight at dinner we found out what that something was. All the waiters get drums and tambourines and walk through the restaurant singing and playing the music. Then a waiter went to each table and showed them a cake, it said on the top ‘Happy Honeymooners’. Then they got Tim and I up to dance in the middle of them. It was so cool, but Tim nearly died of embarrassment though, poor thing! Our 2nd dance in 10 years!

After dinner they have the party upstairs in the bar. Our guide and a German guide co-ordinate the night, although it just ends up being Salem as he can speak German as well and is just the life of the party. They have a few dancing games and one where the girls have to dress the men up as mummies, then a lucky number using our room number. We didn’t win anything (but I think everyone else on our floor did!) but it’s a fun night It doesn’t go for long, but it’s long enough - we’re like Grandpa’s and are so tired!

When we get back to our room, the Room Service guys have made a crocodile out of our pool towels, bath mat and a tissue box - too clever!

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