Cleopatra Aswan

... stuff for us.

My most important purchase has been my own little shisha, and have been enjoying an apple shisha each night...and I'm healthy so the blog title is accurate.

The people in Aswan are a real mix of Nubian and Egyptian, and have been extremely hospitable and friendly, in fact sometimes its hard to get away if they want to have a chat, but its a really fun atmosphere.

Well, better pop up some photos!!

Cbeers, Ben

This time I didn't get up for a sunrise (Pete did). I think I was the last one out at 7am. After breakfast, we said goodbye to Elanoire as she was leaving the boat and we continued on our walk to Kom Ombo temple.

Before going into the temple we went to the water wheel that seemed to be situated in a local's backyard - where he showed us how it works. It is set in a tiny Nubian style village. We then walked through to a “petting zoo” which had baby goats that ...

... a forth like that for a bit.
I had reached my limit of 70 Pounds but he didn't want to budge from 100 Pounds. I was considering walking away (the best tactic for bargaining) then noticed a couple of loose strands from the embroidery on the galabeya and a small stain on it as well. I said to him that those were bad and I wouldn't take it. I probably could have got him down a bit with those small things, but he accepted my price of 70 Egyptian Pounds and the deal ...

... go if there was more than just us on the boat (romantic sure, but we have now been just the two of us for more than 5 months, we like a bit of company) we soon had paid our deposit and signed up for 10 beers, with an assurance that there would be an ice box on board, and told to meet the next day at noon.

That night however we started to worry, thinking about our deposit and what was stopping him from running with it. The whole thing just didn't seem quiet right ...

... we searched for other options. There was a train at 5.30 but technically we weren't allowed on, but really no one would stop us. You can't buy the tickets before hand, you can only buy the tickets on the train (strange these Egyptians).

We only had a 6 hour wait at the train station, as the train was late, we were soon heading down the Nile in the dark to Aswan. Where we crashed out as soon as we arrived. It had been a long time getting here.

... Replica! All that grief and it wasn’t even */>% *@ authentic!
Returned to the boat and relaxed on the sun deck and in the pool while we sailed to Kom Ombo. Temperature getting higher and when the group disembarked to have a look around the temple I decided to have a couple of beers and just relax on board. It was a small temple which I could admire from the comfort of my sun bed while the group toiled and sweated up the hill to look at it in closer detail ...

... and a lof of yelling and pushing in arabic. We girls all stood back a little afraid they would start pulling out weapons, not a good area to be in. But Ahmead our guide calmed everyone down and we went to dig a toilet.
Yes that is right...so much for a vacation, I had to dig a dang toilet in the middle of the desert. I wont get into the difficulties of this portion of my trip (and no i am not talking about a toilet, just the culture in general and adaptations) while i make ...

As we prepared to check out of St Catherine, my overstrained body was really feeling the impact. It's like a whole lifetime of not exercising being lumped into that 6 hours.

I limped onto the van and Mustafa is grinning sheepishly , probably very happy that he didnt go up with us. It's a long drive back to dusty, crowded Cairo and most of us were tired and our leg muscles ached. Coming in and out of the van became such a ...