Day 14. Fri 26th September
Abu Simbel and the Nubian Village
We are getting to know the staff on the Doma now, and they are all very
friendly and helpful. Osama the barman very kindly presented me with a
scotch on the house last night, and it seems to have worked wonders - my
bowels are working properly for the first time since I arrived (I never
had any problem in Africa, but they don't seem to have taken so well to
Egyptian food).
We arrived at Aswan sometime during the night, and are woken at 02:30
for the trip to Abu Simbel. This is made slightly more bearable by the
fact that the clocks went back in the night. (Although Egypt is not quite
in the tropics, nevertheless the seasonal variation in the duration of
daylight is very small compared with ours, and I cannot understand why
they should need to change the clocks - mind you, I've never quite understood
the logic of it even in England).
We have been given the choice of flying or driving to Abu Simbel. The
drive is about three hours each way, the flight is a good deal more expensive
and actually only saves about an hour, so several of us, myself included,
decide to go in the minibus. We sleep for a good deal of the journey.
I have to say that I am starting to get a bit templed out by this stage,
and my enthusiasm for yet another dose of statues and hieroglyphics is
wearing slightly thin. What impresses me about Abu Simbel, more than the
temples themselves, is the fact that in the late 1960s, after the Aswan dam
was built, the entire edifice was cut into blocks and moved 65 metres higher
up to rescue it from submersion in the rising waters of Lake Nasser. In
a project lasting several years and costing millions of dollars the two
temples were rebuilt onto artificial mountains and even carefully positioned
to maintain the orginal orientation to allow the sun's rays to penetrate
the inner chamber twice a year, as in the original design.
Abu Simbel is yet another of the gigantic conceits of Rameses II, and
comprises two temples, one for himself and one for his beloved wife Nefertari.
The temple was rediscovered and excavated in the early 19th century by
the Italian egyptologist G. B. Belzoni.
We are back at the Doma for lunch, and afterwards a few of us take a felucca
ride up river, stopping off at the botanical gardens on Kitchener Island.
On the way we pass the Old Cataract Hotel, where Agatha Christie wrote
"Death on the Nile".
At five a group of us take a launch way upstream to a Nubian village for
supper. We are met by a horde of kids who grab our hands and try to sell
us wooden dolls for 5EGP. One teenager, Fatima, is very insistent. We walk
up the sand dunes to a Nubian house, which is a strange mixture of primitive
and modern, with a clay bread oven and an electric fridge. The rooms are
bare and floored with sand. A double bed stands in the open courtyard,
and a few of us plonk down on it, and only later realise that it is probably
where the owners of the house actually sleep.
After a tour of the house we are taken to a large room where we sit
on mats and eat supper - standard tourist fare, rice, chicken and chips.
One of the daughters of the house offers henna tattoos and several people
have a go.
We are followed back to the boat by the children, still plying their
trade. They can be quite irresistable, and several people give way and
purchase dolls. Fatima goes so far as to burst into tears when I refuse
to buy, but I suspect a ploy and harden my heart!
We head for the Aswan Moon pub, where have arranged to meet the rest of
the group who didn't come to the village. We sit and have a beer and Andrew
samples a shisha, but by 9:30 they still haven't turned up, so Sarah, Roger
and I get a calesh back to the Doma and get severely ripped off, 30EGP
and the horse looks ill-fed and ill treated. Rather than just cracking
his whip, the driver actually strikes the horse.
It turns out the others are still drinking on the Doma, so we give
them a quick run-down on the evenings events, and then toddle off to our
cabins.