written by ed; photos by jayne
Jayne and I have never been on a cruise. Well, there was this one time we were on a three-day Carnival cruise to Ensenada, but that, in my opinion, doesn’t qualify as a cruise. So, we didn’t really have any expectations as to what our Nile cruise aboard the Princess Sarah might look like.
It certainly wasn’t a large ship, accommodating about 120 passengers and it appeared to be about half full. It had 5 levels: the lower level was for dining, the next level was the reception area, the third level had a bar, the fourth level were the rooms and, finally, the upper deck with lounge chairs and a swimming pool. The ship was about 20 years old and in some need of upgrades but comfortable enough. The overwhelming majority of passengers were of Spanish descent, mostly from Spain and South America with no American accents detected.
Mo (our tour guide) joined us for the cruise which was great as it gave us time to know one another in a social setting versus being among temples and monuments. There would be plenty of time for that.
Before departing on our cruise, we spent the morning visiting the Philae temple complex in Aswan with its Temple of Isis, dedicated to Horus, the son of Osiris and Isis. There is also the Temple of Hathor, the goddess of the sky, women, fertility and love, and, as Mo told us, booze! As you can see she has very distinctive ears and her image appeared in many temples and monuments we visited.
One of the first stops on the cruise along the Nile was to The Temple of Kom Ombo. In ancient Egypt, crocodiles were aplenty and thus became a symbol of fertility.
The Temple of Kom Ombo is dedicated to Sobek, the ancient Egyptian deity of crocodiles. Sobek was also considered a protector and is depicted as a warrior with a crocodile head.
After the temple, we visited the Crocodile Museum where we saw mummified crocodiles.
We returned to our ship and set for an overnight sail to Edfu where after breakfast we toured the Temple of Horus, the falcon god, one of the best-preserved ancient monuments in Egypt, dating back to the Ptolemaic period and built between 237 and 57 B.C. It is the second-largest temple in Egypt after Karnak and is an important sacred site for ancient Egyptians because, according to ancient myth, this is where Horus fought a battle with his uncle, Seth, who had cruelly murdered Horus’s father Osiris.
The next day we were off to Luxor, once the capital of Egypt, and its magnificent Karnak temples, and of course, the Luxor temple. One of the things that most struck us about Luxor was how very clean it was, especially when compared to the other cities we visited in Egypt. Since all cruises originating from Aswan have Luxor as their final destination, there are many tourists in town, so it appeared that the city had made cleanliness a priority. I know you might say, well, tourists abound in other Egyptian cities, why has Luxor made that commitment and not the others? Sorry, that’s all I’ve got!
The Luxor temple complex is located on the east bank of the Nile and was constructed approximately 1400 BCE. . In Luxor (ancient Thebes) there are several great temples on the east and west banks. Unlike the other temples in Thebes, the Luxor temple is not dedicated to a cult god or a deified version of the pharaoh in death. Instead, the temple is dedicated to the rejuvenation of kingship; it’s believed that many of the pharaohs of Egypt may have been crowned there.
What was very cool about visiting the Karnak Temple Complex was that Mo grew up just outside the complex so, the complex in many ways served as Mo and his friend’s backyard or schoolyard, if you will, where they would play as kids. He told us many stories of what it was like growing up here and you could sense his deep affection for this complex. He and his family still live very close to the temple complex. In 1979, it was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List along with the rest of the city.
After visiting our final temple, the Colossus of Agnememnon, Mo treated us to lunch and we said our goodbyes, not before exchanging Whatsapp information. We thoroughly enjoyed Mo for his knowledge and for his personal stories which added flavor to the experience. Thanks, Mo and Kelly Campbell and the Village Experience for putting this fantastic itinerary together for us.
We had decided to splurge a bit after our cruise, so we stayed at a 5-star resort for the ridiculous price of $75 USD per night. I think there were more people who worked at the hotel than there were guests. That was fine for us! The hotel was very much self-contained with restaurants and swimming pools, etc. so you really didn’t have to venture out, if you didn’t want to. But Jayne and I both like to experience the local flavor, if you haven’t guessed that by now after reading our posts, so venture out we did.
As those of you who have traveled to poorer countries well know, touts are, on the one hand, expected and on the other, very annoying. While we experienced some of this in Kenya, especially amongst the Maasai selling their jewelry, Luxor was at a whole other level. We especially noticed this when we strolled out of the confines of our hotel. It was a good 15-20 minute walk to some restaurants we wanted to visit and we were lucky if during 5 of those minutes no one approached us for either a taxi ride, a horse taxi ride, a felucca ride, or kids just asking us for money. While you try and be polite at first, after 3 days of this you learn some better responses. For the taxi rides, the best answer was, “sorry we need the exercise”; for the felucca ride, it was “sorry, we’ve already had one” and finally, for the kids, who were the most persistent, “Halas (enough!)” in an angry tone (not something I’m particularly proud of, but man, these kids would not let up!)
In a similar vein, while I consider myself a fairly savvy traveler when it comes to scams, I’m also at times a trusting soul, which might belie my Bronx upbringing. As much as I’ve traveled I had never encountered the following ploy.
As Jayne and I were strolling on the main promenade of Luxor, a man pulls up alongside me and says, “ Hi, I saw you at the hotel. I’m the baker there and heading to the market to buy some spices. Have you been to the market?”
“ No”, I replied, “I have not”.
“I’m happy to take you there and show you around”, he said.
“No thanks”.
He walks a few more steps with us and asks if I had some money to spare. When I said no, he quickly disappeared.
That was kind of odd, I thought. Here was the baker at our hotel offering to take us on a tour of the market and when I said no, he quickly left. He could have at least had said goodbye, I thought, and said something like, “see you back at the hotel”. Oh well.
Within a matter of minutes, another man straddles up alongside me and says:
“Hi, I saw you today at the hotel. I’m the baker there and heading to the market to buy some spices. Have you been to the market?”
Well, you can’t fool this boy from the Bronx twice in a few minutes’ time! So, I decided to play along with him for a bit – I just couldn’t help myself.
I asked him, “How do I know you’re the baker at my hotel?”
He then showed me an identity card entirely written in Arabic.
After a few more exchanges, he realized I was onto him and said, “Do you have some money for me and my family?”
“Sorry, no”.
We came to find out later, that Luxor is known for these types of ploys and so stay vigilant. In spite of these minor hassles, we enjoyed Luxor and had a few excellent meals at Pizza Roma, a pizzeria owned by an Egyptian who had lived in Italy for a dozen years making pizzas. We had the pizza the first night and, as we were speaking with the owner getting ready to pay the bill, a bowl of pesto pasta came out of the kitchen which smelled delicious so the next evening we were back for some pasta and another eye-opening experience.
As we sat at our table, Jayne was looking at a man filling a syringe with some liquid. The next thing I notice, as that man and a police officer walk into my line of vision, is the two of them entering a bathroom just a few feet from where we were sitting. About a minute later, the two of them leave the bathroom with the officer adjusting his pants and smiling at me.
I said, “Everything OK?”, to which the other man replies, “Yes, he’s fine”.
He then spent some time telling us that he was a pharmacist and that the officer needed this shot because he wasn’t feeling well. He went on to say that pharmacists in Egypt are very well-trained and what he did was certainly not out of the ordinary. Upon further conversation, and our own experience with other pharmacists in Egypt (I had an infection that needed some treatment and was impressed with the pharmacists we encountered) the story sounded legit, just a bit strange to us but not to them! Ah, the joys of traveling!
Off to Dahab for some R&R!
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