Day #5, November 8th
The Nile shore is infested with mosquitoes. I should have known. I turned on the ceiling fan at night to keep them off of me. Down side, I caught a cold.
Since the mini van to visit Abou Simbel temple got canceled, my day is now open. So with Dominic we negotiate 4 hours of felucca ride around Aswan and its southern nubian island called Suhail island.
But before the felucca ride, the old lady from the guest house and i had an incredibly interesting conversation about life, religion and faith. (she is this short beautiful old woman, dark skin and all dressed/veiled in black. Apparently, in this region, once you are married you are only allowed to wear black...when you think that in the West it is the color of grief, it is quite funny). Once again, she is Muslim not by choice buy because her family before has been muslim. (interesting that the Nubian people, because of different waves of occupation, have been both muslim and christian at different periods of time). She really enjoys going to church during weddings or other christian celebrations, but apparently would not be allowed if she went on her own outside such event. And mind you, Christian here means Coptic...where the priest is an old long white hair bearded man dressed all in black with a tall hat, very much as orthodox as can be. Her reaction was so open when i told her i had no religion and did not feel the need to have one, as to me they all preach the same thing (no killing, no lying, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, kindness, generosity, compassion...well, at least the people at the origin of each religion were admired because of such values, then politics got involved and messed it all up, mainly to divide populations and create a whole economy around it economically benefitting its leaders, and no longer preaching the original values. It is indeed sad to see that throughout history, not a single religion has respected its original values, but has rather killed and lied with the supposedly sole purpose to spread its faith for the good of all. Lol just like the USA and the West invading countries and killing people in order to impose democracies. What a joke!
Anyhow, she doesnt want the conversation to end. Neither do i, but time flies and felucca man had arrived.
Ever since the government built the high dam to provide irrigation water for the whole country, the life around Aswan and the nubian region has totally changed. And it seems that the last revolution has made things even worse for these people. A bit like DAESH crisis did in the Dogon region of Mali, though not as dramatic, as Aswan still sees quite a lot of tourists.
When boarding Suhail’s island shore we get greeted by two old people, the village chief and his right hand. And bam! another tourist trap we fell into. After a quick rather uninteresting tour of the nubian village, we give our bakchich/tip to the men, and leave. Very disappointing, as it seemed that the more interesting part of the area was not this island but rather the west bank on the other side across the island.
On our way back i learn and realize that going up north the Nile, though in the direction of the flow of the river, also means going against the wind (which comes from the north), forcing the feluccas to zig zag their way up. That also made me understand why the southern part of Egypt is called Upper Egypt and the northern part, Lower Egypt. The souther part of the Nile is actually 17 meters higher than the northern part. Hence its flow south-north.
Back at the guest house, we have enough time for a delicious lunch. I forgot to mention how delicious the lunch at the guesthouse was yesterday. The old lady cooks delicious nubian food.
Then, magnetically intrigued and attracted by the giant sand dune, we negotiate with another boat man,to get dropped off at the foot of the dune, further south of the Tomb of the nobles entrance, right on time for the sunset.
Ha! it is only once at the foot of it that we realized how crazy steep the dune was. Almost vertical! Hmmm...in order to make it to the top on time, no choice but to run. Ha! yeah right! have you tried running up a sahara sand dune? a vertical one? 100% dry air. 1 step up, 5 steps down. Work out for the week. Cardio and legs! The initiative felt so absurd that i kept laughing the whole time. But once at the top...wow! To the left the whole city and its mosques and cathedral. In front of us the Nile, its islands and feluccas, and to our right, a sea of gold waves, the desert, as far as the eye can see, and seeming like a silky golden bed where the sun is slowly setting. Priceless. I am amazed that no one else has thought of climbing up here for sunset.
The hike up and sunset were stunning. But the best part was the “hike’ down. Bare feet in the warm sand. Sliding down, or rather skiing down this gigantic dune, having as much fun as a kid going to Disneyland for the first time. It reminded so much of this magical moment when with a few friends we did the exact same thing on our way down from Mount Bromo, in Java, back in 2013. Magical! Dominic took a while before accepting my advice to take off shoes and socks. But he quickly understood the amazing difference it made.
Back down, i made my way to Mr Hakim to meet a potential felucca captain and negotiate terms and price for a three day felucca trip down the Nile and to Kom Ombo. Good deal, and kind looking Captain.
I had forgotten to book my room for a second night, so i have to sleep on a mattress on the floor of the small hall. Big deal anyway as I will have to be up and gone by 3:30am to catch ferry and bus to Abou Simbel tomorrow.
I bought myself a huge mango and red pomegranates for dinner and eat them on the terasse, chatting with new guests who just arrived. A british family whose son is doing a PhD in Egypt Archeology in Northern Sudan (part of the former Nubian empire). As a side job he also does aerial photography of archeological sites in Jordan. Fascinating! So he gives me a brief history of Abou Simbel temple, which by the way, is situated at the southern tip of the Egyptian desert on the border with Sudan.
What a beautiful day! Thank you life!
Day #6, November 9th
After yet another intense night of fighting with mosquitos (I counted more than 30 bites, just on one hand), I get up (I purposefully do not say wake up as I did not sleep at all, so I was already awake) at 3:15 in the morning. Still full night and dark outside. 15 minutes later we take off, half awake, cross the island and hop on the ferry boat.
We waited a good half hour, in the cold and the dark of the night, at a bus stop exiting the ferry, for the minivan to pick us up. Seemed that everyone was making the same long face we were, not fully awake and not really looking forward to 4 hours of bus to get to the site.
As the sun is rising, the landscape gets magical. The million dunes of all sizes make the sand desert appear as a sea of gold, as far as the eyes can see. A spectacle in itself...to my opinion, much more interesting and beautiful than the actual temples we visited.
Abou Simbel is a temple that was initially at the level of the Nile. People would arrive by boat, directly facing the temple. A spectacle. However, with the dam, the water level rose so high that the temple was threaten to get immersed. So back in the 60’s the government managed to get UNESCO to finance its relocation higher up on a cliff, and thus had to relocate the entire mountain. (the temple, well the two temples were dug into two mountains). In total they sawed the temples into about 3000 giant chunks of stone, and reassembled them after having to artificially build two mountains atop a plateau. In my opinion, losing the original charm of it all.
And so yes despite the fact that these two temples might be among the most important parts of Egyptian history, and are according to some.guides and books, some of the greatest jewels of antique Egypt, in my personal opinion, it was not at all worth the total of about 8hrs of bus ride. But hey, to each his own opinion. Other tourists seemed incredibly thrilled.
Back in Aswan, i wandered in the souq, relaxed and enjoyed culture watching while sipping a mango juice.
Another great lesson I learnt about my travel interest. Travelling far away only to see a place, but not the life, culture, people around it, not again, no thank you. Travelling all this way made me want to go even more south and cross over to Sudan, but unprepared and without my bag, not possible. Abou Simbel temple is totally isolated from any sort of life around it, nothing other than a tiny little village of the people who probably had come to work on the relocation project.
Day #7, November 10th
Finally I managed to sleep a full night, no mosquito, no cold, just sleep. It was about time about three days of no sleep. Batteries and morale fully recharged. Ready for more adventure. Ready for a few days aboard a felucca riding down the Nile.
I get up early for a last tour of the island...it is Friday so everyone is still either asleep or barely up, but the small alleys of the island are quite empty which makes for a very peaceful and quiet morning walk. Wish I had made it a good hour earlier to catch the sunrise. Oh well...the sun rises every morning, so I will have other opportunities.
I pack my stuff and go have breakfast on the roof of the guest house. The older lady later comes up to pick up the tray, with a sad grin on her face. She tells me she doesn't want me to leave. It is just her and I on the roof. She tells me she will miss me a lot. She has had a few rough weeks as her favorite brother passed away 3 weeks ago. As she tells me this, she starts crying. I try as delicately as possible to cheer her up, but no word can really sooth such sorrow I suppose. I realized later in the day that the right thing or rather the best thing would have probably been to take her in my arms and give her a big hug. Wish I had thought about it sooner.
After telling me the story of her brothers, she tells me she doesn't like goodbyes. She gives me a big smile, tells me that I am like her son and that whatever I need I can call her. She asks that I send her a message once I am back in Morocco just to make sure I made it home ok. And she leaves. Now the sad grin is also on my face.
I slam my bag on my back and off I go as well.
This morning, while walking around the island, I made a sudden discovery about myself which helped me better understand why it is that I like so much to travel the way I do, and why often times I feel like I am not necessarily attracted by the same touristy things most travellers are. Like I mentioned before I am not a fan of museums or historical monuments. The reason being and now it is much clearer in my mind, because I am not so much interested by the past or how such and such people used to live, but am rather interested by how they live today. Hence why I prefer to walk through the back streets of a city than to visit it's key museums/monuments. And well, you can imagine how this is hitting me hard in Egypt, a country that is almost an open sky giant size museum in every village and or city you get to. But none of these are still part of today's life here, none. So after Luxor, I think I will skip any other historical site visit and rather focus on more modern folklore and life style...which seems thus far to be extremely similar to Morocco’s.
Caught the ferry and joined my two young captains (Ramadan and Samir) on the felucca, for our departure. I am so happy to be on the water. It makes me wonder every time if one day I will end up living on a boat rather than a house.
(Samir is a big Bob Marley fan, like many people here in Aswan. He wears a Bob Marley swim trunks, shirt and even scarf, and has about 3 of his songs on his cell phone. Lol)
The day of ride goes pretty well. I pretty much spent most of it sleeping as the boat is zig zagging downstream and against the wind. My snoring waking me up, as usual, is my best indicator to inform me as to how much tired I was and how much I needed to sleep. Pretty much what me getting a cold two days before was also supposed to inform me off. :0)
After dinner, and a warm cup of karkade (hibiscus flower infusion) Ramadan wanted to show me his village on the other side of the bush. So we get up and walk through sand and bush for a good 20 minutes, in total darkness. We cross a stream at least 3 meters wide...with only an old skinny palm tree trunk for a bridge. For those of you who have travelled quite a bit and in Africa, you know these times where you have seen a guy coming out of absolutely nowhere, appearing as if teletransported , and you wondering where the hell is this guy coming from? What is really behind those bushes?! Well, this time, we were this guy, we were the ones coming out of absolutely nowhere, and at night in total darkness. Even I as we were crossing the bushes I was wondering where were we walking towards as I couldn't see any light or hear any noise yet. Oh well...
After a while we finally reached paved road and dimmed orangish street light. We meet up some of his friends and sit down in this tent/hut near the village mosque. Only tweenage men in their Friday white robe attire, drinking tea, smoking, and playing dominos. Not a single woman. No TV screen broadcasting any football game. (It reminded me so much of my high school days when my friends and I would spend nights playing cards, sometimes with music, and sometimes also with alcohol, but not necessarily each time) Yet are all having a total blast. At one point we start playing Ludo game on a smart phone. (A version of “horses”). And everyone is leaning towards us 4 as we are playing. Another realisation came to my mind: often we strive for being surrounded by people who will intellectually stimulate us in order to feel like we are having a good and/or productive time. But why? When I see how much we can have much with simple dominos or a game of horses. I think what matters most is rather the complicity/companionship we manage to have with our friends, stimulating or not. If the end outcome is a smile and or a feeling of internal peace, then all is fine.
They were all so welcoming with me, cracking jokes here and there, understanding mines the few times I tried.
During dinner and when the sky turned dark, I tried, like I strangely always do, to spot out the constellation of Orion’s belt. (No i swear it has nothing to do with the movie Men in Black). But no success. Somehow, spotting it out always brings a smile on my face. And as we are leaving the tent/hut and bidding farewell to everyone, the first thing I spot looking up is Orion’s belt. :0)
Day #8, November 11th
A day of gliding down the Nile, sleeping and daydreaming, well needed day of rest. I just love being on a boat, synchronizing with the gentle oscillation of the water.
Today is the departure day for all the cruise ships I suppose. We saw no less than 40 of them going up and down towards the end of the day, all of them with almost empty sun roof decks. Makes you wonder how profitable are they if each of them travels pretty much empty given the low quantity of tourists these days in Egypt. Our felucca has been the only one I have seen thus far thus far. Seems that tourists are so not at ease that they prefer the big and safe cruise ships. Ramadan was telling me earlier that before the revolution of 2011, there were so many feluccas filled with tourists that it was almost impossible to find rest spots on the river banks. And for two days now we have been the only one. What a dramatic change. I tried to chat with Ramadan about the causes and all, but his English is extremely limited. My assumption is that it is not because of the revolution that people are “scared”, but rather because of the resulting government. He mentioned that people liked much more Mubarak. Ha, yet another case like Syria, Libya, Iraq, etc...where “revolution” seems to be fomented by foreign forces rather than the local population.
The sun got interrupted by the end of the wind for the day before we arrived at our rest spot. Which meant we have to haul the boat for quite a while, through sand, swampy area, and water. Finally some action. Strangely it woke me up. Yay!
At last we make it to a beautiful beach on a big deserted island in the middle of the river. Only inhabitants, a few cows, and a man...Jabana man (Abdullah). Singer and poet.
After making a small camp fire on the upper edge of the sand bank overlooking the river and the felucca, Abdullah slowly prepares the jabana coffee according to a process I had never seen before and with tools I had never seen before. The result is delicious. If you think that Indian chai tea is spicy, wait till you try jabana coffee, a mix of Sudanese coffee with some cardamom and a few other spices I believe.
As the night is now fully dark, and we are sipping peacefully our coffee in cups the size of big finger tip, the peace gets broken by the symphony orchestra of all the surrounding muezzins calling out for prayer (same thing happened at Giza…), as if to remind everyone that no matter where you are or what you are doing, don't forget who is in charge and which order you need to submit yourself to.
Later on after dinner, as Mr Jabana (Abdullah), is finishing yet another song and as the fire brightness is taming down, I look up above Abdullah’s head and as the starts are brighter than ever, he is crowned by Orion’s belt constellation. I smile.
Am exhausted...of not having done a thing all day but also of not understanding any of the conversations going on. So time for me to get back on the boat and sleep. As I get up and bid farewell and thank you to Abdullah, Ramadan walks me back and tells me discretely that if I want I can give a tip to Abdullah. Agrrrr the night had been almost perfect. I gave him a copious dinner, but it seemed that it was not enough. It ruined a bit the moment as it made what seemed to be an authentic moment of hospitality and kindness sharing turn into a service transaction. Too bad. But no, I won't fall into yet another trap. False acts of generosity. I find it extremely sad that hospitality has become like that where every action expects a financial compensation in return. Thus far, Morocco and Egypt are the only two countries I have seen where this happens, at least that I can remember. I remember back in Asia, if you try to tip someone for such a thing, the person would get very mad and feel totally disrespected/dehumanized.
On that note, it is on the sound of a slightly offbeat and not so poetic sounding music that I go to sleep.
9am, finally we go. Seems the wind decided to be shy today...we take close to two hours to make it to Kom Ombo, instead of the 40 announced yesterday. Big deal. As long as I am on a boat, am ok.
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