Southern Egypt

G’day all,
I’ve just had another hectic week of hustle and bustle travel in Egypt. I think I’m what you call ‘templed out’ now and if I see one more flam’n pyramid, temple, or tomb in the next week I might have a mental break down. Luxor, like Cairo took a good day or two to grow on me as it’s so in your face and touristy and your just get tossed around like a piece of tourist meat between the conmen. Sometimes travelling alone in a country like this can be really tough battling the crowds of touts waiting for you to walk past. I’m beginning to realize that walking as fast as you can and ignoring anyone that tries to be friendly to you is the only way to survive in touristy Egypt without wasting half your day having pointless conversations and bartering over prices. The temples in Luxor however make up for all the crap you have to put up with as they are so amazing and look even better at night when they are lit up. Luxor, just like everywhere in Egypt is covered in piles of rubbish, festy goats and cats strolling the streets, tortured donkeys pulling carts full of gas cylinders and crops, and dirt roads with huge uncovered holes. The other funny thing about Egypt is that once a house is completed the owners start paying tax so everywhere you look there are houses that were finished 20 years ago but still haven’t got the top floor built and have metal rods poking out. After getting lost without a proper map in Luxor on my first day and walking aimlessly in the wrong direction for hours in the boiling heat I decided to take a tour of the West Bank on day 2. We started early on our tour and headed straight for the Valley of the Kings, followed by Valley of the Queens, and the Temple of Hatshepsut which was really interesting but the heat again was a killer. It was really awesome seeing all the paintings and carvings inside the tombs and in one tomb was even a mummy of a little baby. I was knocked out after being in the heat all day climbing through the valleys so I had a powernap and then went out to Luxor Temple and the mummification museum for a gander. The temple was really cool to see at night and I took a load of great photos and the museum was pretty snazzy too. On Monday morning I went Hot Air Ballooning over the Valley of the Kings and absolutely loved it. I’m not scared of heights by any means but heading off up into the sky was a bit frightening looking over the edge of the straw basket. I was thinking geez this better not drop out of the sky as I crossed my fingers and hoped we’d get back down again with a nice slow descent. Once we got up though I loved it and we flew over little villages and could see all the farmers working and animals walking around (as in video). I made it back to the hotel in just enough time to catch my train down to Aswan for the second stage of my southern leg of Egypt. Soon after arriving in Aswan I found my self a cheap $1 a night bed then went for a stroll along the Nile and the Souqs. The cool think about Aswan is that it’s so close to the Sudan boarder and everywhere you look are really tall African looking people called Nubians. The Nubians are much more chilled than your average Egyptian, whether it’s a cultural difference or its got to do with the amount of weed they seem to smoke each day I’m not sure. The thing to do in Aswan is to take a Felucca (Egyptian sailing boat) ride up the Nile towards Luxor for a few nights. Almost all the captains of the Feluccas are Nubian and they stand along the Nile waiting for you to walk past to bargain a voyage with you. As hard as I tried to not get ripped off again, the Nubian man Joe managed to get the better end of me with his swift dodgy sales skills and I got gypped once again. I started my Felucca ride on Tuesday afternoon after an intensive 12 hour bus tour down to Abu Simbel, Aswan Dam, and Philae Temple in the morning. I started my tour at 3:30am and was shoved into a crammed mini van on a shocker of a fold out seat with no back support and was really regretting getting out of bed. We had to travel down to Abu Simbel in a police convoy because we were heading towards the Sudan boarder. It was an amazing sight to see this huge row of dozens of tour busses driving down together. Lucky for me I sat next to a bunch of cool people and we had a good laugh at how dodgy everything was. Abu Simbel was amazing and worth the trip down, Philae Temple was also very good but Aswan Dam was boring as hell. The minute I got back to Aswan I jumped straight into a taxi and caught up with my felucca boat which had already been sailing for about 3 hours. I felt like a ‘Big Brother’ house intruder joining the boat hours after the trip begun but soon realized everyone was really awesome and we all got on like a house on fire so I was very happy. The feluccas are meant to have no more than 6-8 passengers but I was number 12 on ours (not including the 3 staff) so it must have been a bit of a shock when I popped out of nowhere and joined the crew. It was such a great feeling finally relaxing and cracking a beer watching the sunset as we sailed up the Nile. It was so tempting to jump in for a swim but after learning about the nasty bugs swimming in the Nile we stayed firmly on board. We anchored the boat next to a sand dune for the first night and were chased by wild dogs before having a Nubian meal and an early night. Day 2 of our Nile adventure was fantastic and so relaxing as we just sun baked and talked all day as we cruised up through a heap of Nubian villages on the palm tree lined Nile. The highlight of the day was when we pulled over to the side and went for a walk through this ghost town Nubian Village where this little old lady invited us into her mud brick hut for a look. We couldn’t believe the inside of her place as she lived as if it was 200 years ago and everything was so old and handmade and ancient looking. She looked just as shocked to see us and could do nothing but laugh in amazement at us being in her village and home. We anchored just out from the temple of Kom Ombo for our last night of the trip and spent the last day driving back to Luxor in another crazy mini van and visiting temples along the way. Back in Luxor I was still yet to visit the incredible Temple of Karnak which was the best of the lot. I ended up renting a push bike and rode along the Nile to the Temple and got there in about 20 minutes. Karnak was WOW so huge and mind blowing and the Hypostyle Hall with its 134 massive pillars was amazing. It’s funny because they have tourist police everywhere armed with AK47’s to stop any corruption at all the sites. Sometimes they are the ones sneaking you into a roped off area for a sneaky photo in exchange of a tip which just shows how legit this country is. There seems to be AK47 machine guns everywhere in this country but it’s strange because you start to become immune to it in the end and even when there was one sitting under the passenger seat of our tour van we chucked at it rather than freaking out. Anyway I ended up making back to Cairo in one piece on the train and today I flew back to Dubai where I’m just waiting for my plane to London as I write. I ran out of money in the end of my Egyptian stay and was lucky to survive the past 30 hours on $2 so that was quite an effort I thought.

Walking like an Egyptian,

Woodsy

(ps don't forget to click on the images to enlarge them)