I dubbed our cruise “The Mystery Cruise”. Everything was a mystery: the price, the schedule and the conversation. From the moment we arrived to the moment we left, we never quite knew what was happening. Most of our confusion arose from the fact that all the other passengers were Russian and on a package tour. When I asked one of the very friendly employees when dinner was served he helpfully pointed to the schedule. It was written in Russian. When I turned around to ask again, he had disappeared. Very mysterious! Regardless of the confusion, it was a wonderful two days. The kids were delighted with the freedom to go where they pleased. The cabins were spacious and the scenery spell-binding.
We arrived at 11:00 for a 1:00 departure. We quickly settled into the cabins and then found out that they were expecting us to stay for 2 nights instead of one. Mitch and I spent an hour on the boat the night before negotiating a one night price. We were very specific. But today Hassan, the front desk man, called his boss in Cairo. There had been a misunderstanding about the number of nights and the boss in Cairo said that the price is basically the same for one night or two. What could we do. The cruise was already over budget for us but at that moment the kids were up in their cabin jumping on their king size bed in delight and playing with the free shoe shine kits. They had us over a barrel and we relented. Oh well. We paid for two nights and went off to explore the boat.
Our boat was the M/S Pascha. She was smaller than many of the Nile boats and had wooden decks on the outside leading to the cabins which all faced the river. The top of the boat was flat and had a smallish pool and a shaded bar area with cozy seating as well as deck chairs set out at the front and back of the boat. At 4 they served tea on the top deck. Bjorn and Emma loved the smorgasbord of cookies and piled their plates high.
In Aswan and Luxor, there are limited mooring spots so the boats rope together sometimes about 3 to 4 deep. Our boat was closest to shore in Aswan with boats two and three deep both upriver and downriver as well. We finally left at 4pm. In a giant jigsaw puzzle move we swung out into the middle of the river. Initially, we shared the river with about twenty felucca boats giving sunset sails but soon we were north of town with the river to ourselves. Palm trees lined the shore with desert sand and steep hills just beyond.
We stayed up top until the sun set passing tiny villages and farmers out working their fields. Other than the occasional water tower and the satellite dishes the scenery hasn’t changed much on the Nile for a thousand years. We returned from dinner with full bellies only to find a crocodile on our bed!
Emma loved it and slept with it on her bed for the next two nights.
The next morning we awoke to find ourselves in Esna, not Luxor as they told us the day before. No wonder they wanted us on board for two nights. This was just fine with us as it meant we could spend the morning cruising the river during daylight hours. We stayed moored to the bank until 7am when a group from the boat left on a mystery tour. Then we started downriver to get through the lock. While we waited several optimistic salesmen tried to sell us rugs and towels from shore. Two traditionally built Russian women clad in very skimpy bikinis leaned over the top railing and bargained away with the salesman as he threw large brightly colored towels on board that had scenes of the pyramids and camels. All this was very entertaining and helped while away the time as we waited for nearly two hours to get into the lock.
We finally arrived in Luxor at 1 pm after spending the morning reading and watching the scenery and the entertaining Russian tourists. We swam in the pool in the afternoon and Emma and I toured Luxor temple in the late afternoon. Mitch stayed home with Bjorn who wasn’t feeling very well. While we were gone a boat left and more arrived so there was a big shift and the boat spent a little time out in the middle of the river. By the time we returned, the boats were all put back together. Emma and I had fun walking through the other boats to make our way back. We checked out their decor and decided that we liked our boat the best.
That night there was a celebration after dinner as it was the last night of the cruise for everybody. The wait staff banged on drums and sang a song in Arabic as they paraded around the room with a large cake showing each table the cake. They brought it to our table and with a flourish showed us the message written on it. It was in Russian. We never did find out what it said. Emma got to help cut the cake with one of the ladies who had been bargaining for towels earlier. It was a very festive evening. We decided to pass in the belly dancing show later that night. We wanted to get up early the next morning to tour Karnak temple while it was still a cooler temperature.
We were glad to leave the boat the following morning as we were moored 6 deep and all the boats ran their diesel generators all night. There are plans to ban the practice of docking so many boats together. They also want to require them to turn off their generators and hook up to electric power on shore. We had great fun while we were on the river but looked forward to visiting all the sights in Luxor. We moved a wonderful two bedroom apartment on the west bank far from the chugging boats moored on the east bank.
-Margit
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