It has been too long since I posted, and I have ideas ready to go, but I need to revisit at least my favorite part of Egypt, the Nile. After Cairo, we flew to Luxor and saw the first of Many Temples, Karnak! It was awesome, and has a great name. All of the temples and tombs were amazing. I still can hardly believe they are 'real' even with my own eyes. I guess what makes them real in time to me is the defacement and graffiti for Christians 100's of years ago that wild sad, reminds me that Disney or whomever didn't just go cast the hieroglyphics in concrete for the tourists. The heart of Egypt though is wonderful to see by boat, cruising the nile. I loved passing calmly by villages, wetlands, felucca (sailboats) ruins and my favorite part, farmers on tiny sandbar islands living in reed huts and waving with no expectation of a tip. I imagine this kid sees 50 cruise boats a week and still takes care to wave, I hope they don't care about global recession or conflict and just deal with the river as it has been farmed for 1000s of years.
Another crazy part was when the cruise boats came upon the locks (ship elevators to get up adn down steep portions of rivers) and had to que up to get through. Apparently it was Egyptian night on all the boats and they encourage you to dress up in costume, where to get a costume... Well as you come upon the locks a floatilla of tiny row boats approach, I thought they were pilots of the locks, but when they swarmed they coulb be pirates, but no, they grab on to lines from the boat and get dragged along and as we gawk from the deck objects get tossed and fall from the sky, costumes in plastic bags that they are selling, its hillarious and trusting, I don't know how you pay, a few pounds go back in a back and you get your damp tacky outfit, I just enjoyed the entertainment.
Posts
