Egypt again: The Nile

Africa » Egypt
April 4th 2006

Published: April 11th 2006

Hi everyone I'm actually now in Athens and about to set off for six days in the Greek Islands so thought I'd throw together a quick blog to complete Egypt before I leave in the morning. Finding time to do the blog is actually quite hard because my days are so full! Anyway, the last blog ended with the overnight in the desert. This one continues from there and takes you on to the second half of m... Read Full Entry

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Deirdre Keys (nee Fleming)

Dee_2006_OE

Hi from Dee. I’ve taken a year’s leave from my job of more than 25 year’s teaching and am preparing to set off on my “Big OE”; better late than never! This is a practise, with instructions from son Dan who is an experienced traveller/blogger, to make sure I can work the “Travel Blog” OK before I leave New Zealand on 26th Feb 2006. The photo is me with Dan and Emma yesterday at "Groove in the Park" in Auckland Domain. I hope to visit internet cafes and update weekly but will have to work that one out when I’m on the road. I’ll be travelling to Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Egypt... full info

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Felucca in the reeds

Next morning in Aswan we crossed the Nile again by boat on another beautiful day in Egypt....every day is like this!

Can you guess what my next mode of transport is?

I took this photo from the back of "Ali Baba", my camel. These young Nubian boys started me off on my trek to the deserted coptic St Simeon's Monastery

This was fun.

I got my camel to go for a bit of a blat and it's really comfortable. They are amazing animals, so well adapted for this habitat. The ride was way too short and I decided I have to do this again somewhere!

Part of the Monastery

Philae Temple

A local school group passing by. This temple is on a picturesque island in the Nile.

I'm sitting in the boot of this stationwagon taxi

It was incredibly hot (high 30's?) in the back of this car and no window in the back!

Another new transport..the felucca to sail down the Nile

This was a lovely afternoon, so smooth and quiet on the felucca except when the little local boys paddled up on their little boats and hitched a ride, singing the same medley of songs for a bit of baksheesh

Houses on water's edge

Botanical Gardens on Kitchener Island

Aswan is really pretty with all these islands and like a little paradise on the Nile within the desert

Ancient Nilometre

Used to measure height of Nile and predict size of floods then calculate amount of crops that come next season so work out how much tax to charge

Ossama pours the tea

Our second group's tour leader. He took us to a Nubian village. At first house we had tea while the other man told us all about the Nubian people and culture. Very interesting.

The oven

The family who live here let us look through all their rooms

The fuel for the oven

Forget the name but these are camel dung "patties" stacked up ready to heat the oven in last picture.

One of the girls in our group gets a henna tattoo

We went to this home and had a delicious dinner they cooked for us, sitting around as in background of photo. This lady was one of the family and did the tattoos.

Next day a very early morning start for bus trip to Abu Simbel

This huge complex was dismantled and moved to save it from being submerged when the dams were built on the Nile.

The same temple to give you an idea of the scale of it

It was cut into the rockface and the statues of Ramses 11 are 20m high....an amazing feat to build it in the first place and then shift it as well! Got to be seen to be believed!

Next onto MS Doma for the Nile Cruise back to Luxor

That's me up with the captain of the boat

Our group on the Doma

There were 24 of us on board in 14 cabins. I was sharing with Alison, a radiographer from Wales. Each cabin had it's own bathroom. On top bar, lounge, deck with pool, restaurant. Was really relaxing and cruisy part of tour.

Going through the loch at Esna

It probably dropped about 6m.

The green belt down the Nile

It's sugarcane season and it's been harvested and loaded on to boat here.

Farms all along the way

Saw bananas as well as animal food

11th April 2006

Nancy Rae
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Nile Trip
So glad you take time to share experiences.A brave Lady to be in Middle East on your own. Must have been magic around the desert and ruins.Look forward to Greek Blog.

11th April 2006

Asha
non-member comment

Just lovely!
Has made me want to see Egypt and go on that same cruise on the Nile.

13th April 2006

Jenny Cox
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Thanks Dee - it was like being there again!!! All those places were so familiar. Keep it up and have a great time in Turkey!

13th April 2006

julie
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wow
Enjoying these snippets of your travels Dee. Egypt looks fascinating and challenging. Cant wait to see what you think of Turkey.Its getting cooler here in NZ. You'll have 2 Summers lucky you. Bye Julie

13th April 2006

Gillian Marie
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Luxor
Glad that you had a great time. the photos speak volumes. My understanding is that Karnak Teeemple in Luxor is the largest Temple complex in the world.. you say scond largest. If the latter, where is the largest? Love Gillian Julie Marie

17th April 2006

Charles
non-member comment

Hi Dee Thank you very much indeed for all these fascinating photos - some bring up old memories- some give idease maybe for the future?? Glad that you are keeping well. I miss you - looking forward to when you come home. Charles

16th May 2006

Cath K
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Dee - lovely to see all your Egypt pictures and re-live the memories (and think about that warm sun!). Hope you have a great time now that you have arrived in St Petersburg.

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Egypt again: The Nile

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