Philae Hotel Aswan

... after dark, the food, the amazing and iconic things to do and see...i could go on and on. The pyramids were superb and while the sphinx is a little like the Mona Lisa (much smaller than you think it will be), to be there standing in front of it took my breath away and made me realise how young our white, western civilisation in Australia is when compared to places like Egypt. I could not help wishing that i could see the pyramids in all ther\ir former glory as they were so impressive ...

... convincing and many days later I decided what the hell. It was awesome. Now I can say that I did it. The water was very clean & clear, you could see the fish dancing around by your feet and the water was a very cool temperature. Just what we needed to cool down as it was pretty damn hot. We swam in front of the boat with cows and a dog drinking from the Nile behind us and heaps of locals slightly down stream having a great old time.

We left our little beach for ...

... but i was annoyed even though it turns out i got an amazingly good deal.

Any how, hotel was a **** hole. The door didn't close properly which was very worrying and it had a beautiful view of a waterless pool full of rubbish and old cigarette butts. Classy. I spent a bit of time in my room watching bad Egyptian soap operas featuring women who need to scrape their make up off of an evening after showering. I ventured downstairs to have an older man who worked there show me the ...

... by themselves.
At this shop they would probably be able to find the correct mix of essences to create any perfume that we are familiar with. They had their version of Chanel No. 5 and it was a match according to my nose.
We were then on the cruise boat, where we had great food, clean toilets and air conditioning. And a swimming pool.
Although we were now on the boat, we weren't going anywhere just yet. We had another big day tomorrow before we left Aswan.

... He was apparently doing 2 nights and as we had all been told it was only to be a one nighter we thought it might be best for him to start asking some questions. He was told they would ring the actual captain later. We were soon cruising down the Nile with the setting sun. Now this is what we had all signed up for a beautiful, relaxing and quiet evening. The Argentinian late arrival was later informed that because he had paid the least out of all of us he had no ...

... for days. On the way back from the dam, we go via
Philae temple. Philae is a lovely temple that was moved due to water
rising..it was moved like 50meters to higher ground, cut into thousands
of bitsys and numbered and reassembed. Apparently the reliefs show the
first invention of baseball.and jazz music! The highlight of the visit
was the dodgy boat we had to catch out to the island..and back..and the
ice ...

... Of course i didn't realize where we were. The guide joked that we should climb this huge sand dune to get a better view of the villiages. Of course the guide didn't realize that american girls would take him seriously and left for the climb. The sand we very deep so every step forwarded resulted in 2 steps back. But we made it to the top and noticed higher hills in the distance. A long time later we found these interesting stacks of rocks in piles all around the rocky desert. I ...

... jumped in and a couple of others and then there were 6.

It was really nice and very refreshing and we loved it, then along came a couple of local kids and Steve and I had a wee diving competition with the locals, I think they kind of beat us but it was fun climbing up the rudder of the felucca and then jumping and spinning into the Nile. Anyway after we had all finished and toweled off we left the banks to sail further down/up the Nile while we were still in the sun all ...

... creepy glances from my guide who must be wondering why me a woman was not travelling with my husband but only with my kids and a couple. .

Finally, we checked in. The rooms are run down , not well maintained and had a weird musky smell - a far cry from the Intercontinental in Cairo and even looked shabbier than St Catherine. At this point, I don't really care but just want a shower and sleep. Tomorrow is but another day...