| Submitted by: Evelyn C. Leeper, United States |
| Submission Date: 04 February 2005 |
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The second part was with the wind, so was quicker and more level and took us to the Mausoleum of the Aga Khan. The Aga Khan was a 20th Century leader of the Ismaliya sect of the Shiites. His mausoleum, with its sarcophagus of white Italian marble, is on top of a cliff which forms the beginning of the Western, or Libyan, Desert. It's not a straight up-and-down cliff, but the hike is quite tiring. The Mausoleum itself is plain, or as plain as a building of pink granite and imported marble can be. It was nowhere near as plain as the rock tombs in the cliffs nearby.
We sailed the rest of the way around Elephantine Island (so called because the rocks look like elephants' backs) and saw from a distance the Temple of Khnum, the ram-headed god. It took us a little longer to get back then we expected because the wind had died down but the boat didn't sail on time even though we did make it back.
Lunch was Nile perch, good but it would have been better grilled as described instead of coated and fried. During lunch we sailed north (downriver) to Kom Ombo. All along the western bank was a thin strip of cultivated land and then the desert rising behind it.
Someone in the Cinema Club at work talks about how she loves the desert and desert countries. I can see how she might, because the desert has a certain stark beauty and majesty. It's not my personal cup of tea as a permanent residence but it is fascinating to see. It is not just a flat expanse of sand, but full of dunes and cliffs. Some day maybe we'll go somewhere where we can actually get into the desert on camels rather than seeing it from the Nile or an air-conditioned bus.
After lunch we arrived at Kom Ombo where we saw the temple dedicated to Horus the Elder and Sobek, the crocodile god. This temple dates from Ptolemaic times and has been badly damaged by later religions chipping out the 'graven images.' In this temple archaeologists found hundreds (maybe even thousands) of mummified crocodiles. Our local guide for Upper Egypt, Rabia, pointed out many interesting sections of carving on the walls. For example, in one section he showed us how the various days of the year and corresponding festivals were listed. In other sections we explained how the carvings depicted the annual wedding of Horus and his bride, each carried in a ceremonial boat by priests from their respective temples to meet one day a year.
One of the disadvantages of seeing the Nile by cruise ship is that whenever you get to a monument, so do hundreds of other tourists. They try to spread out the groups over the whole temple area and do the 'high points' in different orders to avoid bunching up, but it's still difficult to sense what a temple must have been like to the ancient Egyptians when it's filled with a dozen groups speaking a half-dozen different languages.
On the way back to the ship we passed through a small bazaar. After some haggling, I bought two galabeyas and Mark bought one. One of the ones I bought turned out to be large on me, so Mark got it and I think I'm getting the one he bought. (A galabeya is a long cotton gown.)
We then sailed to Edfu where we docked for the night. At 5 PM I went up for tea in the lounge, then went into the small shop to browse. While I was there, there were four other American women. One was buying something for her daughter who was also on the cruise. Another one asked where the daughter was and someone said she was in the bar talking to a couple of guys. 'Are they good- looking?' one asked. 'Are they rich?' said another. A third said, 'Are they single?' I turned to the mother and said, 'They're together' which just cracked them all up. The mother said, 'You really know how to destroy a mother!' In addition to destroying a mother, I bought some postcards and some stamps. I've been buying postcards of David Roberts' drawings of 19th Century Egypt--great stuff!
Dinner was an Egyptian buffet, though most of the hot dishes didn't look particularly Egyptian. Also, the lines were so long and crowd control so poor that I had just salads and cheese, and that seemed to fill me up just fine.
After dinner was the galabeya party. Each group had to present a skit. We did one on mummification; two other groups did one on tourists; the other two groups did slave markets. At least we were original, but we didn't place well. However, everyone seemed to get the same prizes--cheap plastic necklaces and cheap camel toys. Most people did not wear galabeyas. After this some of the crew came out and performed some Nubian music and dances for us and we ended up in a giant 'conga line' around the whole lounge. However, when they replaced the Nubian music with disco, that was our cue to leave.
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Breakfast selection was so sparse I had corn flakes. So far on this trip the food is the worst of any trip we've had. I think we shall avoid tours with all meals included when possible in the future.
At 8 AM we went to see the temple of Edfu, the Temple of Horus. To do this we climbed up a stone stairway for the dock to our horse carriages. Unfortunately, this stone stairway was also where they washed down the after-effects of the horse-drawn carriages above. We rode four in a carriage through town--Mark got to ride with the driver. (This sort of thing is not as appealing to the older folks, I guess, partially because it involves climbing up there.) The town was probably a typical town in Egypt with donkeys traveling side by side with cars, meat hanging in open shops, and all the activity and bustle that is missing from your average American town, but more common in other countries which are more agriculturally oriented.
In the Temple of Horus we heard how Horus finally defeated Set. Set had taken the form of a hippopotamus and we saw scenes of Horus hunting and eventually castrating the hippopotamus. This was depicted in a sequence of carvings which Rabia said represented scenes in a play which would have been performed here. Other carvings showed the sacred marriage between Horus and Hathor. In the courtyard was a particularly fine statue of a ferocious-looking Horus in the form of a falcon (rather than just falcon-headed). Within the temple were many elaborate columns in hypostyle halls. While the common people could enter the courtyard, only the priests could enter the hall and only the high priest and pharaoh could enter the sanctuary. In the sanctuary is the pink granite naos or niche in which the statue of the god was kept. The statue has long since 'gone missing.' In another small room behind the sanctuary was a replica of the boat used to carry the statue in processionals. There was a side room used for oracles, complete with a hole in the floor through which the priest could control the statue of the god for the oracle.
After finishing the tour/lecture Rabia gave us fifteen minutes to get back to the carriages, which were only two minutes walk away. There was a large courtyard at the other end of the temple which seemed to have some structures in it so we walked down to see what it was. It was the front courtyard of the temple, complete with flanking statues of Horus and giant figures on the facade. How any tour could miss taking people around to see that is not clear to me. There were also some partial buildings across the courtyard from the main temple that we looked at which didn't have the usual swarm of crowds.
Finally we went back to the carriage and rode back to the boat. I highly recommend the carriage ride. It cost four pounds for four people and included round-trip plus waiting for us about forty-five minutes at the temple and is a good way to see the town without rushing through in a taxi or bus. In New York you don't even want to think about what such a ride would cost. Most towns in Egypt seem to rely more on carriage rides than taxis anyway.
Getting back to the boat was a little easier and cleaner--they had thrown pieces of cardboard over the worst sections of the steps. But we were late leaving because they couldn't get one of the metal stakes out of the stone dock. (To tie up, they drive metal stakes into the dock and tie up to them.) It took them a half-hour of hammering and pulling to get the last one out.
It took about three hours to sail to Esna past mostly farms with water buffalo, donkeys, and an occasional camel. We saw one tractor the whole time. We also passed a couple of factories, but no one wants to waste valuable farmland for factories.
After lunch we lined up to disembark for Esna. There was a problem, however. The power to raise and lower the gangplank was out. So for about a half hour we watched a couple of the crew members standing on the gangplank (which had been swung around to form a sort of balcony in front of the door) trying to work it with a control box hanging from above. Eventually they all came back in to go up to the top deck, from which they started pulling up the cord and control box. As luck would have it (at least our luck), the cord had wrapped itself in a knot around the gangplank railing. Since no one from the crew was around, I climbed out onto the gangplank over the railing across the doorway and untied the cord and gave it two yanks down, at which point they raised it the rest of the way. In the process I also gave Jane heart failure when she saw me climbing out onto the gangplank--I think she thought I was going to swim for shore. Then someone came over and thanked her for having me so that so she figured they had asked me. I told her 'No' and she said she was glad she didn't know that at the time! Anyway, they then used a crane (a different one?) to swing the gangplank out and the cruise ship passengers hit Esna. (I got to be the first one off.)
Esna is known for the Temple of Khnum which is arrived at by walking through the bazaar, which is about two blocks long. Then we went down a steep flight of steps to the temple, the ground level having risen over the years to be almost level with the temple's roof.
Khnum (in one legend) was the creator of everything. He was a god local to Upper Egypt, though, so most books which emphasize the monuments of Lower Egypt give him short shrift. This temple is similar to that in Edfu in its hypostyle hall, but is much smaller. It's amazing how much of the color, particularly at the tops of the columns under the roof, remains. Again, Rabia explained many of the scenes and hieroglyphics on the walls with which I will not bore you.
We walked back through the bazaar. A boy asked Mark for a pen, so he gave him one of the pens we had brought to give away. But the boy didn't want that one; he wanted Mark's flashlight (which looks like a pen). We kept saying no and he kept wheedling until finally I said 'No!' so loud that three vendors turned around. Here is someone basically asking for a handout and then complaining it isn't generous enough.
We went back to the boat because we were told to be back by 3:30, but the boat didn't leave until after dinner. Several people complained they would have liked to stay on shore longer, to which Jane gave her standard response: it's not her fault, it's not Travcoa's fault, it's the boat's fault. Except that we were paying Travcoa to deal with the boat. I am not pleased with Travcoa so far and am curious if Kenya will be better.
Dinner was the best on board so far--gazpacho, tomato and cucumber salad, and lamb kofta (sort of like sausage but without a casing). After dinner we wrote in our logs and watched part of part two of a Soviet film dubbed in English with Arabic subtitles (SIBERIADE).
About 11:30 PM we finally got into the lock just north of Esna. They let ships through only two or three times a day to avoid typing up traffic on the bridge across the river since they also have to swing the bridge section out of the way. We were the only people from our group to be on deck to watch this, but there were quite a few Andorrans. |
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