How Doth the Little Crocodile...
⬅ previous ⬆intro next ➡Day 7 ~ January 26 ~ Nile
Today we're mostly going to be crusing, though we'll stop along the way for a visit to the Edfu temple complex.
Ah, we have a problem. The tug's engine won't start.
Much huffing and puffing ensues to no avail, we need another tug.
Off we go at last. Quite a convoy of much bigger boats is coming in the other direction heading for Luxor.
Life on board is pretty relaxed. Amanda, you may notice, is wearing my hat. This is because she has left her sunglasses down in the cabin and is too lazy to fetch them.
Now you might think that this scene could have been seen at any time in the last few thousand years, but no! We have learnt that while today camels are almost synonymous with 'Egypt', that's not always been so.
The ancient Egyptians lived along the Nile and used boats for long-distance transport; the ability to cross deserts was of little interest to them. While there's evidence that the camel was not entirely unknown even in early Dynastic times, it wasn't really until the Ptolemaic era that trade with the East led to their large-scale use.
But it turns out that "camels in Egypt" is not simply a matter for archeologists and biologists and such, there's controversy over the Bible too. Genesis 12:16 says (in the King James version, which as everyone knows is the one God himself actually wrote in his own native language) "And [Pharoah] entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels." 'Her' being Abram's wife, who Pharoah had the hots for because she'd claimed to be his sister, not his wife, and... well, the story goes on and you can't help feeling Pharoah is a bit hard done by when the next verse is, "And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife."
But the point is, if you're a hardcore Biblicist, that means camels were common well before other evidence suggests, and if you're not, it suggests that God was misremembering exactly what animals Pharoah gave Abram (and just to be clear, even recent translations designed specifically to be clear to modern readers still use the word "camels"). Oh dear.
Well, much as I'd love to dig deeper into historico-theological analysis, I fear that you, my readers, might feel otherwise so on we go...
There's barely a stretch of rock that doesn't have some sort of artificial caves to be seen
We've got a little wind, let's hoist the sail and go tugless for a bit.
It's very pretty, but undeniably less efficient. According to my GPS we're travelling at barely half the speed we were before (which wasn't that fast anyway). Our motor speed is about 8-10 km/h, wind-powered we're more like 3-4.
But hey, we're not in a hurry. The tour title is actually "Slow Boat to Aswan".
Here we are at Edfu, then.
Horus is the main god of the temple.
In the inner sanctuary is one of the main attractions for visitors: a sacred boat. It would be used at festivals, most notably the Sun Boat Festival where the Barque of Horus would be taken out so that Horus (believed to be resting inside) could bless his people.
The temple is of great Egyptological value, as both the second largest and one of the best preserved temples in the country, with masses of hieroglyphics covering almost every surface. However, to the lay eye, the carvings are not massively different from those I've already pictured, so I'm going to be somewhat cavalier and cut the photographic record a little short.
The statue has "Clair Details". We're glad they're not "Claire Details" for the sake of our friend Claire!
Back to the boat...
Camels earlier, cow and heron now.
I regret [though you may not concur] that I cannot offer you any biblical commentary on this scene.
And tonight, although the sun is setting much like yesterday, it is not goodnight yet; far from it!
The Moon comes up.
And we go ashore. It's party time!
The floor is an interesting mosaic of plastic grain sacks. A little web research suggests that the ancient Egyptians used woven mats and rugs made from natural materials such as reeds, rushes, palm leaves, or linen, so this is perhaps not quite an authentic recreation of Pharaonic times.
Cook, ready!
Band, ready!
I'll skip the bit where we're actually eating, because we're eating, not taking pictures.
Ok, so Duncan, Janet and Sophie seem not to have quite finished yet, but the rest of us are more efficient or just plain greedier.
Note the blue and yellow cans of beer. I didn't mention it earlier, but our dahabiya has no on-board bar and we were not aware of this in advance. Now when we've travelled in dry-ish countries with Wild Frontiers before (Oman being a classic case in point), the tour leader has been sure to verify that we are all aware that we will sometimes have to buy our own alcohol in advance if we want it. Rawya hadn't been told that she should get this sorted before we left Luxor, and as a non-drinker herself, it's unsurprising that it didn't occur to her spontaneously. No big deal: a bunch of phone calls and some rapid mental arithmetic about how much we're likely to want has been sufficient to arrange for supplies to have been taken on at Edfu.
The beer is "Stella", which is one of the (two?) main brands here and is nothing to do with the Belgian (originally, but brewed under licence all over the place) "Stella Artois". Whatever, it's very acceptable: we've had a lot worse.
But anyway, dinner over, it's time to dance!
The local boys grab a few of the tourist girls.
They don't grab Rawya as she's a respectable women. [She's happy with that: dancing with strange men is just not part of her culture.]
Eventually they're reduced to grabbing men!
First, they show us the fighting stick dance, then we have to do it ourselves.
I have to fight the cook! I think it's an honourable draw, although he may have let me win.
Then Amanda and Sophie have to fight each other! They cheat and agree to a mutual cessation of hostilities which I am sure undermines the whole Terpsichore/Ares Dance/War thing entirely. Hold on, that's Greek mythology, I must admit I'm not sure what the Egyptian version would be. One moment while I Google... Ok Hathor for dancing, that seems pretty clear, but war is more tricky. Montu seems the most popular online suggestion. Now I have to say that we've seen a lot of Hathor (mostly as a cow rather than explicitly as a dancer, but that's ok, we like cows), but Montu is much less of a known quantity. Seth also seems to qualify for the job, but maybe more chaos than organised fighting.
None of this occurs to me at the time, of course, I'm just watching the (not) fight.
After we all sit down again, the band leader sings a song, then hands me the mike, clearly expecting me to reciprocate. Why me? Well, possibly because I'm the closest, but possibly because I just exude some kind of "choose Steve" vibe. Ask Amanda about it, she'll tell you it's true. She does not entirely think it a good thing.
But hey, I sing the first verse of a song that's older than virtually everybody present ("Selling England By The Pound", but prog-rock is ageless) and honour is done.
And now it's bedtime. Well, for us. While we go to bed, the crew take the boat a little further upriver to spend the night in preparation for a breakfast visit in the morning.
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