Aswan!!

We had a 9:15am flight to Aswan that was only about 30 min.  There was still the same lack of security and we were on an older plane that wasn’t as nice as the first one and had 3 seats on each side of the aisle.  The flight was over tons of desert and even though it wasn’t a long flight it was easier to fly than have to drive around the curves of the Nile.  It was still cool to always look out and see the Nile while flying.

When we arrived in Aswan we went to the Aswan High Dam.  There isn’t really much to see there, it just looks like a bridge over the Nile where the bus stopped and we got out to take pictures.  But the guide actually told us how the lake behind the dam is the largest man-made lake in the world.  There was more security at the dam than any other monument that we visited and we found out it was because if the dam was somehow destroyed then all of Egypt would flood in 12 hours.  We took some pictures there since the water was really pretty in the huge lake, and then we all got back on the buses.

Next we headed to the Philae Temple.  We drove to the entrance but the temple is on an island so we had to take a small boat to get there.  The temple was actually moved from Philae Island because it was going to be destroyed by the Nile.  This temple is in more of the Roman style than the others in Europe and even has a small unfinished chapel outside that Alexander started building.  As a side note, I noticed that our guide never called him Alexander the Great and I’m pretty sure it is because he was responsible for destroying or defacing a ton of Egyptian temples and monuments because he didn’t like their polytheism.  A lot of the Philae Temple was dedicated to the goddess Isis, so we learned all about her image and how to recognize her (she is always shown with a solar disc with a chair on top).  We walked through the temple with our guide first and then he gave us about 30 min to explore what we wanted and take pictures.

Then we headed to our hotel to check in and have lunch.  We stayed at hotel Isis Island which was on an island in the middle of the Nile which was pretty freaking cool.  Whenever we ate we usually sat by the window and thought about how cool it was that we could stare out the window at the Nile while we ate.  The hotel was huge just like the other one with a bunch of restaurants, shopping, a disco, pool, and even a giant chess board outside.  As the hotels got bigger, the rooms got smaller and less nice, but I think this is just because we were majorly spoiled by the first hotel in Cairo.  In this room we each just had a twin bed but it did have a fridge in the room which came in handy for storing all the water we needed for the desert heat.  Lunch was another amazing buffet and this hotel had a pasta bar where you could choose your sauce and veggies in addition to lots of delicious other hot food and of course a massive dessert section.

After lunch we got to relax and take about an hour nap before meeting back in the lobby at 4:00pm for our felucca ride.  The felucca is a traditional sailboat that travels on the Nile.  Our boat was navigates by 3 Nubians – 2 adults and a smaller boy who looked like he was about 10.  After we got sailing they started playing us Nubian music.  One of the men had a drum/tambourine instrument that he used to play the awesome beats and then the little kid went around and got everyone up and dancing.  We were all dancing around the boat in a circle and chanting with the music.  It was hilarious to see some of the professors getting down with the Nubian beats!  I also had the greatest group of people on my boat and everyone was so into it and having fun dancing around.  We didn’t even really travel very far on the boat which was fine since we were having so much fun dancing.  Then we just turned around and headed back while enjoying the scenery.  The ride was only about an hour but definitely one of my most fun memories of the trip – especially since the songs were so catchy and I can’t get the beats out of my head!

After we got back to the hotel we had an optional trip to go on a ride around the city of Aswan in the horse drawn carriages.  Since I had nothing better to do, of course I went on the trip and rode in a carriage with Lauren all around the city.  It wasn’t particularly beautiful or anything, just so different from anything that I have ever seen with all the Arabic everywhere.  The language and having a completely different alphabet really makes you feel like an outsider.  Our carriage even broke a tire during the ride so we had to stop in the middle of the street to fix it!  The carriage ride ended at the Aswan bazaar which is the largest in Egypt and we spent about 2 hours wandering around and shopping.  This bazaar was outdoors and definitely more of what I thought the Turkish bazaar would be like.  All the shops pretty much sold the exact same thing and the Egyptians selling stuff were very forward and aggressive as usual, but I had pretty much become immune to it at that point.  Some of them were really friendly and for some reason they all think it is a hilarious joke to keep saying “welcome to Alaska!”  It was maybe a little funny the first time I heard it but then it just wasn’t because it was truly freaking hot everywhere in Egypt and all of our destinations kept going farther South.

After shopping we met back up with our carriages and rode them back to the hotel.  This time it was dusk so it was cool to have another perspective of the city on the way back.  We took the boat back across the Nile to get to our island hotel and had dinner around 9:00pm.  We took our time and had a relaxing dinner filling ourselves up with all the yummy food and desserts before heading to bed.  The TV in the room actually had a bunch of English movie channels with Arabic subtitles so I watched the end of The Wedding Singer as I wrote down the day’s activities in my journal before heading to sleep around 11:00pm.