Week 15

Thursday 28th July.

Goodbye Sudan, Hello Egypt.

Everyone was awake pretty early in the morning, and by pretty early, I mean as soon as the sun rose because it was so hot. We all spent the morning sitting around, eating some food that we had brought along and drinking litres and litres of water. By the time lunch time came around however we couldn't drink the water anymore because it was too hot to drink! We had to go down the galley area in small groups and get the most unofficial looking immigration official to stamp our passports. We finally pulled into the ferry mariner in Aswan, Egypt sometime after midday. By this stage we had packed up the refugee camp and taken down the sun shade in anticipation of getting the hell off that boat as soon as we docked. But, of course, things didn't go as quickly or as smoothly as we would have liked. It turns out that somehow the authorities had discovered that there were a few stowaways on board the ferry and we sat there, in the sun for two hours while they did whatever it was they had to do. It was so hot. Well over 40 in the shade- which was limited to huddling under a lifeboat on the edge of the ferry.

Finally off the ferry at 2pm we had to make our way up a long, steep driveway with all of our bags to the immigration building. We joined the long line of people waiting in the sun and prepared ourselves for the long hot wait. Then a small miracle happened and they shuffled all the white people to the front of the line and into some sort of express lane so we were rushed through immigration and customs.  Alex got pulled aside and had his bag searched but apart from that it was a surprisingly smooth border crossing.
We had to walk down what felt like the longest train station platform on earth and at the end of that we got into the waiting, slightly airconditioned minibus. We were dropped off at our hotel in Aswan shortly after and all shown our rooms. Alex and I scored big time, getting a huge room with a big bathroom, three beds, and a balcony overlooking the Nile River and some mosques.

We dumped our bags and went straight back down to the foyer to meet up with the others. Once all assembled we went straight back into the crazy heat of the early afternoon and went for a walk. At this stage I wouldn't blame you if you were thinking that we were all crazy, and usually I would agree. However, we were on our way to McDonald's and NOTHING was going to stop us. It had been a good 5 months or more between burgers and in the heat stroke and exhaustion we were all so excited we could barely contain ourselves.

I will always wonder what those poor people working at maccas thought of us that day. We hadn't showered in nearly a week, had been on a dirty, smelly ferry for over 24 hours, and some people (Benne) were so deliriously happy when they walked into the building that they were jumping up and down and welling up with tears of happiness. We must have smelt so bad, looked so dirty and acted so weird!  It might sound silly to get so excited over McDonalds, but it was in a different universe to what we had become accostomed to over the last few months, that even those that dont really like the golden arches got just as excited by the idea of eating it!

After stuffing ourselves silly and enjoying thier super airconditioning we ventured back out onto the streets and wandered home. I had the longest and coldest shower I have ever and probably will ever have, and came out feeling almost human again. At dinner time we went back down to the restaurant in the foyer area to meet everyone for the dinner that the hotel was preparing for us. Not long after dinner we went to bed exhausted and happy.

Friday 29th July.

The start of the shisha madness.

We slept this morning, enjoying the comfort of a matress under our back and airconditioning in the room. Once up we made our way down to the hotel restaurant for our breakfast of one boiled egg, a small bread roll and a cup of tea. We chilled out for an hour or so and then met everyone in the foyer at midday to go back to McDonalds. After another Mcfeast we hit the market and went on our first (but not last) Egyptian shopping spree. We spent all afternoon wandering through the alleyways and haggling with the market stall owners. We walked away with three new shisha pipes and some other lovely souvaneirs.
We got back to the hotel just in time for dinner. After dinner we took our new goodies up to the roof of the hotel where there were seats and a small square pool about waist deep- perfect for sitting in! We tried out our new shisha pipes and watched as Alex's new obsession was born and drank beers all night long.

Saturday 30th July.

Philae Temple.

We tried to get maccas delivered but couldn't find the right number, so Aileen and I took one for the team and offered to do a food run. Thank goodness we bumped into Sherri at maccas because without her we would have had to have done two runs, it was the biggest food order I have ever seen!
We took the food back to the hotel and we all ate it up on the roof. We spent the rest of the day listening to music, smoking shisha and sitting in the pool. At 6pm, Alex and I, Emma and Benne, Fiona, Lars, Mark, Aileen, Jimmy, and BJ all got picked up to go to the sound and ligt show at Philae Temple.
It was our first 'real Egyptian' experience and it was a really nice temple. The temple was originally built on a small island, but that got flooded and submerged in 1906 when the first Aswan dam was built, but in the 70s UESCO picked it up from the bottom of the river and put it on a reconstructed island, built to look exactly like the original one.

We wondered around taking photos of the ancient hieroglyphics until the light and sound show started. The 'light' part of the shower was great, the 'sound' part of the show was incredibly tacky and sounded like something out of a Walt Dysney movie on steroids. I really enjoyed it, but just found myself blocking out the tacky sounds.

When we got back to town we went to the night market and walked through the bazaars. Alex took his shisha pipes backs because they were a little bit faulty and had them fixed up, and then we just wandered- smelling the scents, enjoying the sounds and tastes of Egypt at night time.

Sunday 31st July.

Happy 10 year anniversary!

Today we were all going to see Abu Simble Temples, and were picked up at the hotel 4am, which meant a 3.30am wake up call. Ouch. It was a three hour drive to the temple, almost back to the border of Sudan- showing how quick and painless that border crossing could be if only they would open a road! The plan was to sleep the whole way there, but I was having too much fun watching the countryside pass by that I only got an hour or so sleep.

We got to the temples at 7.30am and stodd in front of the impressivly massive stone structures while our guide filled us in on a little history and fact. The huge temple built for King Ramses the 2nd stands an impressive 20 meters high at the front. It was badly damaged in a huge eartquake some time B.C. Sitting next to that temple is a smaller one, which was built by the original hustler, King Ramses the 2nd for his favourite wife Nefteri. Thats right, I said favourite wife. This pimp-daddy of the ancient world had over 2,000 kids and at all time had well over 20 wives. However he wanted Nefteri to know that she was the most beautiful and most loved so he had this temple built to keep his missus happy.

We had only 45 minutes to look through the two temples before having to meet everyone at the front entrance to leave for Aswan. It was quick, but once inside there was not too much to see. Ramses temple had a lot of little room and hallways and beautiful statues and Nefteris smaller temple had some amazing statues inside and out. No photography allowed though, so you'll have to take my word for it, or go see it yourself! They were really impressive and beautiful and it is incredible to think that they built these huge structures by hand so long ago.

We had a quiet drive back to Aswan and tried to rest in the afternoon, tired from our early morning wake-up. In the early evening Alex and I had a shower and got all pretty to go out for a nice quiet dinner together to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. We walked along the water checking out all of the restaurants and chose a nice one with a floating platform on the nile river. We bumped into Sheri and Tony who were also there eating dinner. We ordered a yummy mixed grill and a stuffed pigeon. The pigeon would have been nice, but I don't think it had had a good feed in a few months because there was next to no meat at all.  For dessert we ordered an apple flavoured shisha and thats when the rest of the crew walked in, having also chosen that same restaurant for dinner. Great minds think alike! It was a wonderful night and a magical and memorable place to celebrate our decade together.

Monday 1st August.

It's felluca time!

We woke up early to sort all of our stuff out in time to meet in the foyer at 10am. Its Felluca Time! We sang happy birthday to Fiona and I helped Marcus get her candles and cake ready, it was a nice surprise for her.

Once Jimmy and Jan had woken up from their alcohol induced coma and we were all gathered in the foyer we grabbed our bags and made our way accross the road to the fellucca waiting for us in front of KFC (which, much to our horror was still closed- damn Ramadan).

We settled ourselves down on the deck of Elephantine, our felluca and set sail. The Felluca's deck was a flat surface covered in a mattress and pillows. The boat sat really low down in the water so you could dangle your feet in the water while sailing. There was a sun shade covering the length of the deck and there was a small area at the back and front where we could sit in the sun. It was so peaceful sailing down the Nile River with nothing but the sound of the soft wind hitting the sails. I thought I was already pretty relaxed, but I found a whole new level of relaxed-ness!

In 3 days/2 nights we had a staggering total of 45kms to sail, so we were in no rush at all. We spent the next hour or so zig-zagging down the nile until lunchtimewhen the crew pulled up at a small island in the middleof the river. They made us lunch of beans, salsa, and tomato and cheese spread with flat bread and watermelon afterwards. It must have been hard for them as it was the first day of Ramadan, so the first day of fasting. For meal time we all moved over onto the other boat which had less people on it and the crew set the food up on the deck and we all sat in a circle on the floor to eat. After lunch we went for a swim to cool off and then set sail again.

We cruised for a few more hours until we pulled up on the bank of the river just as the sun was setting. Went for another swim as the crew were getting dinner organised and then we ate, layed about, swam, played games, talked, drank and did more relaxing.

Tuesday 2nd August.

Felluca heaven....!

We woke up when our bodies told us to, had breakfast, swam, sailed, read, takled, listened to music, ate, read, slept, stopped for lunch, swam, ate, swam, sailed, drank, ate, slept, played games, read, takled, took in the beautiful surroundings, drank, read, swam..... you get the point.

At lunch time we dropped Farron off on the banks of some town we were passing because word had it our truck had arrived in Aswan and he had to unfortunatley go sort out paperwork and boreing things like that.
In the afternoon we pulled up on Donkey Island, and guess what- there was a donkey tied up right in front of where we parked. We went for a swim and enjoyed the yummy dinner prepared by the crew. After dinner the crew made a fire on the snady shores of Donkey Island and we sat around as they sang us songs. It didn't take too long, or too many drinks before we were up singing and dancing with them. It was a wonderful night. All the relaxing and swimming and eating and drinking had made me tired so I went and curled up on the deck of the felluca and fell into a deep and happy sleep.

Wednesday 3rd August.

Nikko and his horse.

We were up relativley early to set sail. Had breakfast on the move with both fellucas tied together and only a short hour or so later we were at the drop-off point. We gathered our stuff, got off the fellucas and into the waiting minivan. What a fantastic two days, I would reccommend a felluca trip to anyone travelling to Egypt.

We were driven 2.5 hours to Rezekiel Camp in Luxor. We were all provided with airconditioned room overlooking the big pool- Thanks African Trails! Before we had time to do anything we were met by the fixer who took us through a list of activities that we could do and we put our names down for a half day 'west side' tour, a half day 'east side' tour, and a US$50 hot air balloon ride!

We went to Pizzahut for lunch and then went back to our rooms to escape the heat. We spent the afternoon relaxing in our room and looking through the 300+ Arabic and 2 English television channels. At dinner time Alex decided to stay at the hotel and myself, Emma, Aileen, and Benne got a mutatu minibus taxi to a nearby Chinese restaurant. After a yummy dinner we caught a horse and carriage home with Nikko the crazy man and his very well fed horse. I was sitting up front with Nikko and he let me steer for a while- and by steer I mean close my eyes and hope the horse knew what it was doing! We drove through the narrow winding streets of the night market. I was fantastic to see, hear, smell and experience the sights of the night market. When we hit the main road though, it got a bit hairy when Nikko got his horse to gallop over speed humps!