The Nile cruise – sailing across the length of Misr
Updated: Oct 28, 2018
Day 3: GET SET SAIL…… BUT ASWAN FIRST!
This morning we open our eyes in Aswan, in a beautiful Nubian homestay in the wilderness. Our guide Yassir, a young enthusiastic guy picks us up after breakfast as we set off to explore the city. The sun is glorious for a winter day and the city has brightened up. Several bumpy alleys later, we end climbing a smooth ramp and what unfolds before us is rather unexpected. We are standing on a bridge, a really broad one. On one side we see a huge water body, stretching till the horizon. It happens to be Lake Nasser, one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. This reservoir is so huge that it spans two countries, southern Egypt and northern Sudan. On the other side is a massive structure known as High Dam. Yassir beautifully explains about the lake and the Dam and their importance to the area and the controversies surrounding them.
In one of those moments I lose track of time and space and delve into a void thinking about the sweet life and how every day is a blessing. As I come back I find both the boys laughing at me. I laugh along and we set off towards our boat waiting to take us to Philae temple.
Passing through lanes laden with papyrus factories, we reach the outskirts and cross the old dam. Driving further a few miles, we hit the water again. In a lively quay our boat awaits us and we sail towards the Philae temple, a structure built on the Agilkia Island in waters of Nile. As we get nearer to the temple, our guide tells us that this is not the original place where this huge structure was erected. I don’t understand him as this would mean that somebody picked the temple up and placed it here at its new location now, which is obviously not palpable. I ask him to explain. And I go bonkers when I realize that this temple was originally built on Philae island and got submerged after the first Aswan dam was built in 1906. Many decades later, an attempt was made to save this temple and it was actually decided then to dismantle the temple complex, move it brick by brick, stone by stone to a new island. But they had to wait for the completion of Aswan High dam so that the water level around the new site could stabilize. After 9 long years, the temple now sits on the quaint Agilkia island.
Is there something that the Egyptians can’t do?
We disembark at this dreamy place and it’s indeed a charming complex on the river island. Dedicated to goddess Isis, it belongs to Ptolemaic era. In Egypt, wherever you go the intricate carvings, the statues and the pylons follow you. The ancient Egyptians have surely put in a lot of effort.
Later that day, we check in to our Cruise ship which from inside appears a fully functioning hotel with all the amenities. In my line of work, I have some experience of working onboard but Anirudh looks pretty amused by his surroundings. The insides are beautiful, furnished with rooms, corridors, dining area, pool deck and a bar. Except that it’s a ship.
For now, the ship is docked at the pier in Aswan and the sailing doesn’t start until noon the next day, because we are visiting the temples at Abu Simbel the next morning and the sailing starts once we are back from our half-day outing.
So we spend the night in the harboured boat, amid lots of savoury Egyptian food, belly dance and the amazing tanoura show (Sufi whirling – the art of physically active meditation)
Day 4: BUT ABU SIMBEL FIRST
Not all cruise packages include a visit to Abu Simbel, but it’s really worth a visit. It’s an interesting journey by road amid a wide expanse of desert on both sides which looks picture postcard beautiful. We are now in front of the massive twin temples, and by the mere sight of the magnitude of this structure, I am stunned!
What sends even more goosies down my body is knowing that this complex was also relocated entirely to its present site to prevent it from getting submerged when Lake Nasser was created. The temple dates back to 1244 BC, built by Ramesses II. The temple got covered with sand by 6th Century BC, eventually forgotten till it was rediscovered by 19th Century AD explorers.
Sitting on the bank of lake Nasser, legend has it that the axis of the temple is aligned in such a way that twice a year (allegedly the King’s birthday and coronation day), the sun rays would penetrate the complex and illuminate its structures. The country is surely pandora’s box of fun facts!
We set sail, hoooray!
Shortly after we check back in, the boat leaves the port and shoves into Nile waters. Our room has the widest window ever. As the boat skims the river, we soak in our mesmerising surroundings. We spend our the entire evening and our time post dinner sitting by the window.
We are drifting across the river and in our cabin it feels like being in a fantasy world, when suddenly our ship starts to disembark. How we had totally forgotten that this one’s a part of the itinerary, the temple at Kom Ombo. We are averse to the idea of leaving the boat but drag ourselves out nonetheless, hoping to find an interesting story awaiting us.
And it really turns out to be intriguing. Its real important to have a guide, an Egyptologist to pilot you through the temples. They decode the structures, the shapes, the carvings, their significance. What otherwise looks like an ordinary wall turns into a storyboard when an expert decodes it in front of you. A wall that looked mundane with repetitve carvings, on close examination and explanation turned out to illustrate the birthing process that the ancient Egyptians followed. A woman is delivering sitting on a bench and thousands of years later, biomedics are back there, experimenting this way of birthing and realizing some benefits. On another wall, the crude form of modern calendar is carved out out of wall, as we now know that the solar calendar was first built and used in Egypt.
There is a well called Nilometer, a structure for measuring Nile river’s water level during the annual flood season for the access of ancient priests and rulers only.They would use the quality of flood to determine the taxes to be collected.
Adjacent to that temple complex is the Crocodile museum. If you thought that Egyptians mummified just the human beings, then you are mistaken. We were, too! Until we saw lots and lots of embalmed crocodiles. It may appear overwhelming at first, but take a few breaths and definitely go through this area. Crocs of all shapes and sizes sit in that museum, all of them thousands of years old, their physical form still survives in the 21st century owing to the perfect mummification process.
For the record, the ancients have also mummified dogs, cats, fish, baboons and even serpents out of their sheer love for animals.
On my way back to the ship, I am glad to have pulled myself out of bed for this. Couldn’t have afforded to miss out on this one!
Day 5: The next morning I wake up in my la la land and as I look through my big window, we are floating on water. I get pretty kicked, I hoot and clap in excitement.The waters have been really smooth all this while, we haven’t felt even the slightest jitter till now. The itinerary demands us to get ready for the morning visit to the Edfu temple. I totally hate the idea of leaving the cabin, but once again we follow the plan out of the fear of missing out!
A tonga-ride later, we reach the temple. One of the best preserved shrines in Egypt, the temple of Edfu also belongs to the Ptolemaic era.
I am overjoyed at the plan ahead, the plan is to do nothing all day except gorge on the meals, chill out on the deck, wave mad hellos to people on other ships and drink in the views as the boat progresses towards North.
We are sipping our evening tea on the deck when people start gathering on the bow of the ship. While I don’t register right away, Ani blurts out – “Esna lock!”. Esna lock, for a change is a phenomenon of modern Egypt. In a navigable river, a lock is required because of the presence of an obstacle because of which a sudden change in the river level happens. The gates open and we pass through the narrow margins, everyone whooping now.
Before going to bed, I ponder over the itinerary. It says, if you want to take that balloon ride that you have been dreaming about many months now, you have to get your ass off the bed really early in the morning. Also you have to pack your bags, as the cruise ends tomorrow morning in Luxor, where the ship finally disembarks. Bad Bad, I think and go to sleep anyway.
Day 6: Feeling like a history scholar, already
At 4 AM a minivan picks us from the pier and takes us to another pier. We sit in a small motorboat and take a few minutes to cross the river and get off at the west bank. This early morning parade is happening because ballooning happens either at dusk or dawn. The reason? Simple. A balloon will ascend by virtue of the temperature difference of the air inside (which is increased by igniting the flame) and the atmospheric air outside. So lower the outside temperature, safer a balloon ride will generally be!
We reach the site for ballooning and it’s a huge bare ground. I am really groggy and sitting in the minivan, I fear I might fall off the balloon. Today is not the best day for a balloon ride, the local guy tells us. And it might get cancelled amidst all these winds, you know. We are asked to wait and watch and I grow nervous at the thought of missing out.
A strong believer in miracles that I am, the weather turns favourable within 40 minutes, and within a flash of seconds the fire inside the basket is ignited, we are asked to run and hop onto it no matter how, the balloon has already risen up two feet, it is swinging in the air as the balloon guys try to keep it from rising by pulling it with huge ropes from all directions, meanwhile amid all the yelling and chaos as every passenger is confirmed to be on board, the guys release the ropes and we start rising in the air.
It was funny and scary at the same time. I am now wide awake owing to the adrenaline rush of what happened within a matter of few seconds. There’s just one person piloting the entire balloon, maneuvering it, putting the fire on when we losing height and putting fire off once we gain considerable height. A fellow passenger who is a bit sceptic asks the pilot – Is it safe? The pilot lets out the cutest reply ever – “If it no safe, I no fly”. Awww, I felt like pulling his cheeks.
While in the sky, it felt like I was walking through the pages of a storybook. Balloons of so many colours all flying up in the sky! The world looks nothing short of a fairytale from above.
Flying from the west of river Nile, we are now overhead the water body and it looks dreamy during the daybreak. We cross it still meandering the skies and the pilot tells us that we have been very lucky to be flying this day as this has been first river crossing in a long time. I am glad I don’t run out of reasons to clap and giggle.
After loitering in the skies for close to an hour, we start our descend. I wonder how bad the landing is going to be, keeping in view the messy take off. The pilot explains us about soft landing, hard landing and crash landing. As he explains, our expressions change from joyous to tense to freaky. Hovering very close to a barren piece of land in the fields, we approach closer to ground.
The basket tilts and we are dragged sideways on the ground for some time. There’s a lot going on, everyone’s screaming except the pilot, we are feeling the tugs and jolts at the same time and everything comes to a halt eventually.
Curious, I ask – “Which type of landing?” “Soft” – he says
I swallow it hard, not trying to wonder about hard and crash landings. But I am fully awake now. And we earn “certificates” for making it out alive.
After the literally ‘eye-opening’ ride, we finally meet Ahmed, our Luxor based guide who had put the entire cruise experience in place for us. Today we explore Luxor, a city replete with monuments, temples and tombs, humorously acclaimed as world’s largest open air museum.
As this while, we have been sailing between the East bank and West bank of river Nile and our guide Ahmed tells us this fascinating thing that for ancient Egypt, east bank symbolizes Life and West bank symbolizes death. The housing, farming, commercial dealing for thousands of years happened on the fertile east of Nile and burying and mourning of the dead happened on the infertile desert on the west bank. Wow! I think. Since Pyramids are in fact tombs of Pharaohs, this actually explains the presence of Pyramids on the west bank.
We are now standing in the Valley of the Kings, and I have not seen a place more mysterious. We are now talking about the era when the ancient Egyptians realized that the Pyramids are vulnerable to robbery, as they are easily noticed and they started burying their rulers in hidden places. Now this is actually a mountain, and it is actually mind boggling to know that a huge mountain holds the tombs of royals at various heights and depths inside it. My mouth goes wide open at the expanse of the site.
Legend has it that digging a Pharaoh’s grave in the mountain starts the day he gets crowned. So the longer a Pharaoh goes on to live, the deeper his tomb is erected. Woah, too many interesting things coming our way at once, we start exploring the site.
Valley of the Kings as we know it was excavated from 16th to 11th Century BC to build tombs for the ancient royals. Another fascinating thing to note is whenever someone disturbs a mummy, a curse is cast upon that person – a thief or a scientist and can allegedly bring illness, bad luck or even death – something which we now term as “Curse of a Pharaoh”.
The discovery of tomb of Tutankhamun has been the most recent discovery although that happened in 1922; almost 100 years back as I write this. Howard carter died and his death is widely attributed to the curse of pharaohs. The discovery has been sensational news for many decades and featured in my English text book back in school when I never realized I would actually get to witness it. Tut, having died early was expected to be found relatively easily as per the depth of tomb theory, but it took many years. The reason – his tomb was hidden beneath another in close proximity. Egypt in parts is a fantasy world painted on to the immense expanse of the sand.
While most of the mummies found all over Egypt have been placed at the museum in Cairo, the most popular of the mummies, Tutankhamun’s is here in the Luxor. Removed from his tomb and placed in a glass case in front of it, I freeze at the sight of it. How else do you react when you see a human being as old as 5000 years? Not a hundred or two-hundred, five-whopping-thousand years ago this person was a King!
I notice the hair, the teeth and limbs of the royal mummy. This mummy has undergone a lot of scientific research and investigation and is suggested to have died of some form of intense physical trauma, a possible explanation of his early death.
We visit other tombs of the valley and in one of them, we notice a really deep well (covered now) in front of the tomb. It turns out to be a ditch to trap cave robbers, and Ahmed tells me that human skeletal remains have been found in these wells. Looks like every era has its own ways of handling miscreants!
The next stop is the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut, and the story behind this one is pretty amusing. Hatshepsut is the second confirmed female Pharaoh, and the first great woman in history of whom we know! Hatshepsut, the only heir to the throne after the death of her father and adolescent death of her brothers was almost unacceptable to the kingdom as a ruler. She was a woman of strong character who did not want to be seen as a temporary ruler, but as an influential King who could rule Egypt in her own right. For the 22 years that she reigned, she dressed like a man!
We then set out to visit colossi of Memnon, another huge structure. Ancient Egyptians liked it big, I wonder.
We make a quick stop at the Karnak temple and the Luxor temple, but by now we are already saturated with so much knowledge and wall carvings and larger-than-life size statues and obelisks that we skim through these places. But in no way did I doubt the greatness of these places and tales behind them. These temples have been covered with sand for the good part and were recently discovered.
Ahmed is such a great story-teller, its evening now and he has revealed so much about Luxor! We have stayed astonished for the good part of the day.
We are now craving food and ask Ahmed to take us to a place he likes himself. After all who knows it better than the locals!
We are now at ‘Quick Pizza’ he quickly orders and heaven arrives in generous portions in front of us, placed on a plate. Have a look for yourself!
In the late evening, we embark on our road trip to Hurghada. We are now done exploring the historical Egypt and it’s now time to hit the sea shore.
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