The River of dreams...

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ORIGINAL POST: 8 Feb 2008
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So, if you're sticking with me thus far, I hope I haven't bored you with my randomness...

I just see:

Pyramid.

Sphinx.

Sand.

Another pyramid.

Sand.

A palm tree.

And then mix things up with a camel.

And then, to go wild and crazy...

...more sand and a building made of rocks.

So, I hope I haven't taken it too far the other way in my quest to show you a little different side.

So... we made it to the train station in Aswan, Egypt.
And after a train-ride like that, it was a welcome sight.

And then directly to our ship - the Radamis II - which was in a line of a dozen boats... you have to go through two other boats to get to our own.

From the "luxury" of a sleeper train with 5ft 8in beds to the real luxury of a Nile cruise boat, Danielle looks a little pleased to be there.

Complimentary drinks and plenty of room in the lounge to stretch the legs.

The boat was nice... extremely nice...

At least now we could flush the toilet paper.

But things went from really great.

To nauseatingly beautiful...

Then, 5 minutes to settle into our rooms and off to the shoreline to get on a boat to head a few miles up the Nile to one of the last 3 Nubian villages. After the dams were built during the middle of the 20th century, hundreds of villages and dozens of ancient monuments were destroyed by the lakes and rising water.

We visited the village nearest to Aswan.

Just a preface: everything in this area was extremely photogenic - its not THAT hard to be a National Geographic photographer if their locations are places like this. Even my friends with the cheapest digi-cams were coming away with postcard-esque images.

See the Nile.

Love the Nile.

Love the little random kids that paddle up to the boats and hang on and commence to singing American nursery rhyme songs in Arabic...

But, they never asked for money... which from the direction of things like this from the previous two days - I really did expect.

So, maybe not EVERYBODY is out for a buck...


And if your kids are not out on the river hanging onto the sides of boats... maybe they're climbing the sand dunes and riding down in cardboard boxes... that's what I'd be doing...

...it reminds me of my youth...

Well, at the Nubian village, we were met by about 100 camels.

Get excited, Sam!

Because you're on a camel...
Or scared...

...and excited...

So, they're actually a lot of fun...

We went into the home of a Nubian family and they treated us to drinks and tea and one of the ladies did henna tattoos...

Not quite my thing, but I'll take a picture of it... because its a cultural experience.

That is why we have these behind-the-scenes moments, after all...

Then, coming out their door, I'm not sure what to think about this...

Whatever, though...

The rest of the Nubian village is picture-perfect Egypt... a village with only a few families and a head patriarch.

I like it...

Everything about the region...

It is a completely different feel from the Northern Egypt area near Cairo, Giza, and Memphis areas.

However you get there - boat, plane, train... walk - you need to get there...

And then the day had only begun when the sun set over the West bank. After dinner, Osmon wanted to take us on a walk around the town at night - through the bazaars and parks of a small Egyptian town.

About 20 of us took him up on this offer - the rest of the group missed out on something they STILL regret missing. Not only was the nightlife a lot of fun, but we got to go out on a walk and talk about life and have good conversation.

We tried sugarcane juice. I'm glad I did, but I won't be ordering it anytime soon.

So, about the part that was so amazing:
About 15 minutes into the walk, there is this commotion at the next intersection. Cars drive up from every direction and block off the intersection and start doing dough-nuts with sirens and horns and insanity. We think there is a car chase or something, but not quite sure...

...to make a long story short, the cars go on and we go about our business.

On the way back to the ship after about 1.5 hours out, we hear this huge party going on across the road from our boat. All the cars from earlier were celebrating the wedding - and this was the afterparty.

Osmon, in his infinite connections, somehow knew the people getting married.

"You guys have 10 minutes," he says.

"To do what?" we're confused.

"To go to the wedding party."

So we did... and, for the 20 of us, one of the top 3 favorite parts of the entire 8 days in Egypt. Less than 72 hours in and we could have gone home right then happy campers.

The men dance on the left and the women on the right. The father of the groom was showing the guys how to dance in the "real" Egyptian way. (No... you won't see that silly bent-arm stuff ANYWHERE in Egypt. It is a purely American-made absurdity.)

Sadly, no pictures. Sometimes, you just have to put the camera down for a really good reason... this memory is for me...

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The next day began with a trip to the dam that supplies 90% of Egypt's power and almost all the power for 8 or 9 surrounding countries. It is a big thing.

So big and important it has monuments built in its honor by other countries.

Otherwise, there wasn't that much to see... its just a big dam. Not impressive like the Hoover Dam in the USA, but still really kind of a big deal for international relations for Egypt.

But on the way to Philae Temple - which requires another boat ride, the driver kinda got distracted and Osmon jumped up and saved our lives...

Okay, that's not true... I think they were about to sing something like "I'm a little tea pot" but Osmon wanted to steer. I don't know... I was kind of confused by the situation.

We'll just say he saved us...


Philae Temple was the first of MANY like this. This one was in very good condition because it was moved when the dam flooded the area. They moved it to an island, by the way... hence the boat...

Pretty good reconstruction...

So...

It was our first of MANY real experiences with hieroglyphics...

If you don't know, they're not just little bits scattered around the walls. The Hieroglyphics COVER the walls from ceiling to floor on every wall, column, staircase, stair step, ceilings, statues - sometimes even the floors - coating everything.

And it was also our first experience with someone who truly and actually believes in the ancient Egyptian gods.

There are about 2.5 million people around the world that still believe in the ancient gods that encrust the walls of these huge temples. Mostly from Canada and the Netherlands, they come to each of the remaining temples in Egypt as a pilgrimage sometime during their lifetime. Primarily, they believe in "forces" - much like the yin and yang of Buddhism - but in the Egyptian world are explained by the god of good things (growth, green plants, life) and the god of bad things (death, the "Red Land" desert, evil). Single events cause some effect later and everything can be explained this way - again, much like Karma. If you do good things, the forces of good are on your side... if you do bad things - well, you know...

So, while we fill the sanctuary with our little group being taught about the writings on the walls, this lady came in and prayed to the "force" of this temple. She was only there a minute or two - then she left...

Cool place... on an island... almost one of those nauseatingly perfect areas we got used to seeing...

Much like the top of our ship while it was cruising down the Nile.

Or the view out the window of the lounge as we arrive at Kom Umbo.

Or directly after dinner...

But Kom Umbo was the second major temple we visited. It was the place that worshiped the crocodile god - complete with mummified crocodiles.

And we saw it at night. They light these sites EXTREMELY well... the wide-angle lens @ f4 at 400ISO was easily bright enough.

Beautiful, beautiful site...

And Osmon at work...

Kom Umbo Temple has the world's oldest datebook-style calendar. That's what this is...

So, speaking of more Osmon fun: during dinner, my good friend Mandy said something about the chocolate bananas we had the first night on the boat. She just asked the waiter if there were any - they were fresh out...

No big deal... she wasn't that distraught.

Somehow, Osmon found out she asked...

This is the outcome of a situation like this:

And it was free...

And he got one for himself, too...

And it was free...

Love that guy...

So, that is the end of post #3 from Egypt. That one covered two days, I believe... so... things are moving faster...

It'll all be over soon, I promise. Thank you guys for sticking with me so long!

Stay tuned,
~Noah D