Aswan, southern Egypt

I took an overnight train last night from Cairo to the medium-sized city of Aswan, on the Nile in southern Egypt near Lake Nasser, which is the largest artifical lake in the world (a result of damming the Nile). The train ride was pretty nice, as I had a cabin on a sleeping car (I'd wanted to take a cheaper daytime train, but it had been cancelled). I knew I would be sharing the cabin with someone, and it turned out to be an Englishman roughly my age. So we had plenty to talk about recounting our travels and where we were headed next, although he was on a much more abbreviated trip, spending about ten days just in Egypt before flying back to the U.K.

I'd heard the trains here weren't too punctual, and the English guy had actually talked to someone who'd said their train had arrived ten hours late! The one we were on left at 8 pm and was supposed to arrive 12 hours later, at 8 in the morning. But the rumors were proved right as it ended up being 4 hours late, right about noon. This didn't bother me all that much, as it meant that we had some daytime traveling to actually see the desert landscape along the way, which was really beautiful.

So for the first time in my travels, I've actually booked a tour. The manager at my hotel back in Cairo also organized tours, and was fairly persistent about trying to sell me one, though not in an overly pushy way. I kept turning down his assorted offers, and eventually booked that train ticket to Aswan, which also gave me a good answer to any more offers, since my plans were already in place.

But when I told him that I was taking the overnight train to Aswan, it turned out he had a tour with several other people already planned, starting in Aswan the same day I was arriving. It entailed spending two nights in Aswan, then two nights on a feluca boat floating down the Nile towards Luxor, and two more nights in Luxor, with guides and transportation to a number of ancient sites along the way. It sounded like he had one more space left to fill, and plus he'd obviously gotten the message that I was traveling cheap, as he offered it at a great price, $160 for six nights and seven days. That includes all accomodation, breakfast while staying at 3 star hotels in Aswan and Luxor, and all 3 meals included for the two days going down the Nile on the feluca boat, plus transportation and guides to the various sites. And it's supposed to be a smallish group of 3-5 other foreign travelers.

So considering that this was right in my budget range and would cover almost all of my expenses, I decided to go for it. I won't get another chance to float down the Nile anytime soon, and besides figured it would be fun to travel with a small group of other people for a change. There was one little snafu though, when I got to the train station today, and nobody was there to meet me, as was supposed to be the case. I was wondering about that since the train was so late, but didn't get too stressed about it, since I had the phone number of the guy who I'd bought the tour from (and of course knew where he worked, in case there was anything wrong with the tour). But things were corrected with a phone call back to the hotel in Cairo, and he told me which hotel I was staying at for tonight.

I checked in there, and soon afterwards a couple of the tour guides showed up to give me the basic info. They were two young guys, roughly my age if not a couple years younger, super nice and not pushy about selling anything else. It turned out that today there was nothing planned, which was fine ith me as I wanted to just walk around Aswan a little on my own anyway, and then take a nap after sleeping (not very much) on the train. Although I had a bunk, the train moved around a lot and didn't give me much of a chance to actually get to sleep.

So, the actual touring starts tomorrow (Sunday) at 2 in the afternoon (just my sort of schedule!), when we'll go to the Aswan dam, as well as to a temple on an island in Lake Nasser, which I'd read about in my book and sounds amazing. Then on Monday after checking out of the hotel, we'll head for the boat and start floating down the river. We won't actually be floating all the way to Luxor however, but instead will float for a day, and I guess dock the boat for the night somewhere and sleep on the boat. Then we'll continue the next morning until mid-day, at which point we'll drive the rest of the way, visiting two other ancient sites on the way to Luxor, both of which are ones that I'd read about and was interested in seeing. Once we arrive in Luxor and check in to our hotel there, we'll figure out the schedule for the final two days there.

So, that's basically what I'll be up to for most of the next week. Once the tour wraps up, I'll still have about ten days or so on my own in Egypt before I fly back to Athens. At this point I'm thinking I'll probably stay in Luxor for a couple of extra days, since it sounds like there's a lot to see there; and then I'll head west to the Dhakla oasis, out in the desert a ways. There are a hanful of different oases that all sound quite interesting, but that one is the most convenient it seems to get to from Luxor, though at the same time it's supposed to be a little less touristy than some of the other ones such as Bahariya and Siwa. I guess I'll write more about what the oases are all about when I actually get there.

That wraps things up for now, not exactly sure when I'll get the chance to write next...if not from Aswan again tomorrow sometime, then probably in Luxor after the boat trip.