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Egypt/Italy Tour 2003: Friday, 18 April 2003
Edfu
A warm sunny Friday morning by the Nile with brilliant sunny weather- which I suppose it must almost always be. We disembarked into a whole series of carriages - black, ornate and horse-drawn.
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Our security was very prominent today with at least two types of armed police. We were driven into Edfu and walked towards the temple through a bazaar - there was much cajoling from the bazaar owners for us to buy things and also many flies.
Temple of Edfu
This was our first view of the most impressive Temple of Edfu. The guidebook tells us that this is one of the best preserved temples in all Egypt. It is built of sandstone and took 180 years to complete (from 237 BC to 57 BC).
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Pictures 4 and 6 below show the massive outer pylon; image 5 the Mammisi or Birth House, which is a chapel attached to the temple where the birth of the god occurred.
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Image 7 shows the open courtyard facing the hypostyle hall and image 8 the hypostyle hall itself.
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The next two pictures show: Water spouts between outer and inner walls (9) and some defaced gods (10). We did cover Edfu quite thoroughly but for some reason not many pictures were taken. We did visit the inner sanctuary; in it there were many groups of tourists each led by a guide so there was much clashing of the different languages.
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Back on the ship
By 10.45 a.m. we were back on the ship, had a late breakfast and began heading northwards again. A long lazy morning followed catching up on diary writing and other small jobs. View of Nile, a river boat and the banks (11) and the lounge of the boat (12).
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Scenes from the upper deck
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The barrage at Esna
By now, we were approaching the barrage at Esna (16); this forced our boat over to the extreme left hand side of the river to go through a narrow gap.
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As we went though, a number of vendors launched small boats attempting to sell pieces of cloth. Bundles of the cloth were thrown from the boats all the way up to the top deck, a very skilled business indeed, although there was some concern as the group tried to throw them back. Along with the cloths came a small container filled with water - the idea being that you throw out the water and replace it with money and then throw it back again. "Hey, lady!" "Hello". Another group on the side of the barrage then joined it. The boat stopped for quite a while as haggling, throwing and shouting took place.
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Lunch
A sumptuous buffet lunch was served on the upper deck. The food on the boat was excellent throughout.
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Lock at Esna
The second obstacle was a lock, which we went through as lunch was finishing at about 2.30 p.m. There was a very considerable drop in water level across the lock. No vendors were present.
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The next two pictures show two typical Nile bank scenes.
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Passing boat sequence
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Arrival in Luxor
C. 17.45 hours, we arrived in Luxor. The light was beginning to fade but I took some pictures of the Luxor temple, clearly visible from the top of the boat. The latter incidentally is pretty high - 11m above the water.
At about 7 p.m. a group of us left the boat and walked out onto the Luxor's promenade. It was a very warm evening indeed. There was much calling to us and offering of caleches but again we were eventually left alone and only intermittently called out to. The promenade is grand with many boats moored along it (I understand that there are 350 of them on the Nile - many not in use at present as tourism is depressed), lines of trees and many people out for a walk as we were doing.
I must admit I did wonder, given Iraq and the present middle-eastern situation and possible anti-westerner feeling whether this was an altogether wise thing to do, but as it turned out we needn't have worried and I personally detected no hostility at all.
We walked as far as the Luxor temple, walked around it (we are going inside it on a later day) and came back by a narrower more workaday road "inland". Here were shops selling more ordinary things - food, spices etc. Again we were called out to, but it seemed reasonably easy to refuse.
Despite the late hour it was very warm indeed - what it would be like in summer I dread to think!
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Party games
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Up early tomorrow as we are going to the Valley of the Kings. Corrado is also predicting great heat - even at this time of the year.