Dateline: Cairo. Sadly, the week on the Nile is over. We didn't cruise far, probably no more than 100 miles. The hotel ships run from Aswan to Luxor, and sometimes as far north as Quena, with one group of passengers, then they sign on a new group of passengers and run the pattern in the opposite direction.
In that 100 miles of river there are supposed to be 300 of these ships, which run between 3 and four decks. Ours, the M/S River Anuket, held about 140 passengers in 70 cabins, and is owned by Grand Circle Travel out of Boston, MA. They also own two smaller ships which cruise under the Overseas Adventure Travel label, the small-group subsidiary of GCT.
After leaving Aswan we stopped one night at Edfu, and another at Kom Ombo, before making Luxor on the third day of cruising. Luxor was formerly known as Thebes; it is the location of the Temple of Karnak on the east bank and the Valleys of the Kings and Queens on the west bank. We were in Luxor three nights, one more than planned, because the water was too shallow for cruising north of Luxor to Quena.
Low water, and high water, are both problems with river cruising. If the water is too low you don't have sufficient clearance to navigate. If the water is high you don't have sufficient clearance to get under bridges. In spite of this touchiness, river travel is big business because it is intrinsically sweet. There is no motion sickness on the smooth river water and there is always something to look at on the banks.
One runs out of superlatives to describe the size and grandeur of the various temples and tombs. Suffice it to say they are very grand and awe inspiring. They reflect a society obsessed with the (imagined) afterlife and what it must take to get through its challenges to an eventual resurrection. The guidebook for this journey came to be called The Book of the Dead. Its rules were etched and painted on the walls of tombs and compiled into papyrus scrolls, for handy reference by the deceased.
One great irony is that the goods they were buried with, both riches and everyday necessities, were looted by their own people quite soon after burial in most cases. Some of the thieves were the very priests who taught the religion upon which the whole Book of the Dead ritual was based. That makes me wonder about the extent to which they believed in the efficacy of what they did.
Egypt has been amazing, tomorrow we fly to Jordan, just 80 miles from where the Israeli army is predicted to be rolling into Gaza tomorrow. Damn, touring next door to a war zone doesn't make the greatest sense but we're going to do it.
Egypt has felt very safe, the government obviously spends millions on tourist safety. Plus the Egyptian people don't seem to be an angry lot, quite the reverse, they are basically happy. Interestingly, they come in all colors from African black to southern European light tan. You see a lot of faces that look like Nasser or Sadat or Mubarak, these leaders were/are normal Egyptian types.
