Day 5 - Aswan

I wake to find Mister already up and moving about the cabin.  He says he slept well, even with the pretty rough ride and loud stops.  I didn't hear a bit of it and slept like a rock.  It was great.  Breakfast pastries arrive along with some coffee for Mister.


We arrive in Aswan and as we leave the rail car, there is a gentleman holding a sign with our name on it.  He introduces himself as Mohammed and leads us to the van that takes us to the hotel.  It is a quick drive down the Corniche and stops in front of the Philae Hotel.  We enter the doors and instantly are refreshed. The place is amazing and we are introduced to Hanan, the manager, who speaks perfect English and is an amazing hostess.  We are served lemon drinks from her mom's lemon tree and taken to our wonderful room.

The room has a balcony and the view of the Nile is so beautiful.  I love Aswan already.  I aim for a rest and Mister heads downstairs to set up our plans for our stay here.  He returns having planned out 2 days with tentative ideas for the third.  I am thrilled --- we have a plan!   We leave within 1/2 an hour for Philae: The Temple of Isis.

The driver is a friendly Coptic who points out the new Coptic church and wants to talk, as usual, as we drive to the landing where we will take a boat to the temple itself as it is on an island.  He drops us off and goes to park and wait while we explore.

We head down to the boats and have been told ahead of time by both Hanan and the cab driver how much to pay for the ride out and back.  The boat people are trying to charge much more and I haggle with them (I HATE haggling) but cannot get them to back down.  I am committed to spending no more than 80LE including the tip and the guy won't budge. I tell him 60 plus tip -- he says 80 -- so I say 80 with no tip and we are given to another person who will be our boat driver (typical Egyptian ways) and off we go towards the temple.

It is majestic sitting out on this island that is surrounded by the clearest, bluest water I have seen in a very long time.  It is VERY HOT and we leave the boat and climb the stairs up to the temple.  We love it -- we walk the entire place and read about each section and study the details on the walls and columns.  It is a beautiful setting and we are shocked as usual at the ability to have created this.  It is from around 300BC -- and still standing.  We go back down to the docks and find that our driver has been out swimming and is refreshed -- I secretly wish we could do the same -- it is over 110 degrees in the shade.  When we arrive at the docks, the negotiator from before is nowhere to be found, so we give some other guy the agreed upon 80LE -- he then wants us to give "baksheesh" to the driver and Mister explains that that was not our agreement --he could find the other guy and work out getting his tip from him as we arranged.  Ugh -- I dislike this whole system.

We find our driver and he takes us back towards town and we stop at the Unfinished Obelisk.  Now this really helps the mind understand the work that went into these items and how very tall they really are.  This is an obelisk that they found that had been partially cut from the stone but it cracked and so was left in the ground.

This particular obelisk would have stood 137 feet tall if it had been raised, taller than any other known one.  By now, I am melting and so head inside to cool off while Mister explores further.  When he finishes, we find our driver and head back to the hotel.  Our clothes are soaked with sweat and we head for the shower and then to a wonderful lunch downstairs which Mister had set up ahead of time.

It is koshary with tahini and bread and water, water, water.  It is delicious and I want to learn to make it when we are back home.  We take a little nap and then decide to walk over to the Nubian Museum.
 
The Nubians were a people from Northern Sudan who also had a historical impact on Egypt.  We get directions and start down the street.  We manage to get lost and pass the Coptic Church, a mosque, and go entirely around the museum before cutting through and up some stairs to reach it.  We go to get tickets, but there is no one at the window.  A guard looks for the guy and tells us that he is at prayer and we will just have to wait for a few minutes.  It turns out to be about 10 minutes and we get our tickets and go into the museum.. It is very well done, but warm inside.  We learn a great deal about the Nubians.

It is dark as we leave and we walk down the street towards the new Coptic Church.  It is buzzing with activity so we go in and check it out.  When you enter the gates, it is like a small market with stalls and people hawking their goods, children running and playing, and people gathered in social groups visiting.  There is a service going on inside and so we peek in and find all the women on one side and the men on the other.  The speaker is sitting up front and there are tv screens throughout the large room so that all can see him.  We quietly leave and Mister gets offered 1,000 camels for me from an Egyptian man -- way too funny.  Finishing our walk, we arrive at the hotel and are definitely ready for bed.  The heat just saps everything out and we are beat again and have to rise at 3 a.m. for our trip to Abu Simbel.