Off the Couch and On the Road

After a shower to recover from the neverending train journey, we head out to the Old Cataract Hotel where many of the rich and famous have stayed, including Agatha Christie, who allegedly wrote ‘Death on the Nile’ during her stay. We had high tea and beer (contradiction of terms?) and watched the sun set over the Nile which was beautiful - the rich green of the palms and blankside flora in such dramatic contrast to the desert sand directly behind and the clear flowing Nile in front.

Everyone had decided to dress up in the traditional men’s Jalabea’s (ph. sp.) for the evening which looked great, to the general amusement of the locals - and by the time the sun had set we were in the right frame of mind to catch a boat over to see the sound and light show at the temple of Philae.

The temple (332-30BC) was dedicated to the goddess Isis but would have been flooded following the construction of the Aswan high dam, so UNESCO took the entire temple apart piece by piece and relocated it (including the temples of Isis and Hathor and the kiosk dedicated tothe Roman Emporer Trajan) to the neighbouring Aqilika Island, which was a pretty amaing feat in itself.

The sound and light show was completely cheesy, the ‘voice’ of the Nile speaking to Isis to outline the history of the temple, with coloured lights illuminating various parts of the temple as you walked through - but it was fun enough and good to see what might have been ‘just another temple’ in such a different way.

It was an early start the next morning, so after the boat ride back it was an early night in our hotel.

-Sarah

I met my group on Saturday night before we head off on a day tour of Cairo the following day. The group was tiny - 5 plus myself (all Australian bar one Swiss) and our British tour leader Cheryl, which was an ideal number - and we set off the next morning to Giza and the Pyramids.

They were amazing, smaller than I would have expected, but still in such good condition after 4600 years. The Great Pyramid of Khufu is the largest of the Pyramids of anicent Egypt, and with 2.5 million stones, set only 3mins off true north and only 0.06 per cent of a perfect square is to date the biggest, most perfectly constructed and greatest building ever built by mankind.

We couldn’t actually go into the Great Pyramid, they only let a few visitors in each day, but we also saw the other two pyramids at the site, Khafre and the smallest, Menkaure, and while most of the group went into the pyramid of Khafre I walked around, marvelled at the anicent wonders and tried not to get sold into anything dubious by 10-year-old boys (’you just look, I give you this gift for free, you give me gift in return no problem, where you from?’)

From there we drove down the road, the city skyline in the background, to see the Sphinx - again smaller than I would have expected (’they take the postcard shots up close,’ our guide joked) but no less tunning at 240 feet long and 66 feet high.

A quick visit to a store to see how they made papyrus paper, then a quick felafel for lunch, and we arrived at the Egyptian museum. I know I had already been once, but it made much more sense with guided explanations, and it happened to be less crowded too so I ended up seeing more anyway. Apparently the dissarray of the artifacts is partly due to the new museum being built out near the pyramids at Giza, which should be finished in another few years (if ever, we are talking Egyptian time here).

Once we were thoroughly exhausted from our day tour of Cairo, we took some time to stock up on snacks at the supermarket, before dinner at an Egyptian restaurant and a quick bus ride to the train station where we caught an overnight train to Aswan.

The seats were comfortable enough - similar to first class aeroplane seats - but I am not one for sleeping in moving vehicles, so it was a long night. Also, being Egypt, the ‘12-hour’ journey took 17 hours, so we didn’t end up arriving in Aswan until 3pm the following afternoon. I was so tired I don’t even actually remember getting off the train or checking into the hotel. It was a long night, but at least we arrived. Eventually.

-Sarah

I did nothing but read and sit in the hotel the rest of the week. It was a long week. -Sarah

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