We had decided that we couldn’t afford a Felucca trip, but when our accommodation in Aswan was cancelled a few days before, we found a last-minute deal. On arrival, it is obvious why the Felucca trip is not as popular at this time of year. It is simply almost too hot to move.
The boat is fantastic however, like an enormous floating mattress. We have two captains, a cook and a guide, all included in the price and we start to feel nervous about the amount of money they must be making from the trip, knowing that what we paid will mostly go to the boat owner. Some serious tipping will be necessary at the end.
Mahkmoud, one of the captains, is extremely excitable and spends all his time hassling Hassan, the cook, who has lost his voice box to throat cancer and speaks through a little speaker.

The over-exuberant Mahkmoud
Hassan, who is Nubian, is the most gentle and beautiful man that we have met on our trip. The kids love him because he sounds like a robot when he talks and is extremely kind and attentive.

Mahkmoud and Hassan.
We have a late lunch of the most delicious Falafel I have ever tasted, beans and salad, then set sail, with a beautiful cool breeze blowing straight off the Nile into the boat.
Just after sunset we pass underneath the Aswan bridge. The mast of the felucca is slightly too high to pass underneath but the whole thing pivots to a 90 degree angle half way up and we just scrape underneath.
It is a very romantic concept, eating dinner whilst sitting on the soft carpets of the upstairs level on board a boat on the Nile. Unfortunately, my digestive system has reached saturation point and whilst Hassan’s food is delicious, I eat out of politeness only.
We have tied up alongside the banks of the Nile in a picturesque spot that, funnily enough, sits just below the main highway out of Aswan.
It is hard to feel comfortable as the wind seems to be getting hotter and hotter since we stopped sailing. We are all very tired however and we set up our beds for the night and are very happy to have our portable dome mosquito nets that we have carried all this time and haven’t needed to use often.
By 9pm we are all lying under our nets looking at the stars and listening to the traffic hurtling past nearby. It is the hottest I have ever been whilst lying in bed. I feel like a chicken in a fan oven. I check the temperature which is still 36 degrees. I want to take most of my clothes off but Roger is trying to protect my modesty. It is extremely difficult to get to sleep and this being the eve of Ramadan, there is quite a bit of activity in the night. Hassan is up cooking a pre-Ramadan snack at 2.30 am and then there are multiple calls to prayer from 3am onwards.
I wake at about 4am with the most excruciating stomach cramps and spend the next half an hour subtly having explosive diarrhoea in the cabin toilet which has no running water. Once I have used the reservoir bucket, I venture on to shore to squat in the sand. It seems that this is the toilet stop for numerous felucca tours before us and it is a virtual minefield of human excrement. I don’t care, I just want somewhere where I can have explosive diarrhoea very loudly.
I doze through Hassan’s breakfast, having taken a number of different medications, and wake some time later feeling tender but able to get on with the day. We have set sail towards our final destination near Kom Ombu where we will disembark the next day and continue on to Luxor.
We stop during the morning to visit the village of Mahkmoud’s family. It is beautiful to see the way that the Nile nourishes the land on either side. The crops are green and lush and livestock graze in the grass. Behind, the sand hills of the desert create a kind of protective wall from the harsh environment that lies beyond.
The first day of Ramadan sees most people sheltering from the extreme heat, inside. The majority of the Egyptians we have met are observing Ramadan which sees them fasting between 3am and 6.40pm (which is when the sun sets at the moment).
Walking from the Nile up to Mahkmoud’s house, we consume more than a litre of water but Mahkmoud has nothing. The heat is so extreme here that it seems almost dangerous to be not consuming any liquids. We feel sorry for the crew who should probably just be lying in the shade to get through the day.
On our return to the boat, we swim in the Nile. None of us really believe that there are no crocodiles, but apparently since the building of the high dam South of Aswan, all of the crocodiles are trapped on the other side and are never seen in this part of the river.
Our water quality standards have gone down a bit since visiting Varanasi and the water looks very clear and inviting. Looking back at the photos, it looks very green in this particular part but the water is so cool and refreshing that we don’t care. It is surprisingly cold, but as soon as we hop out, we want to get back in again.
Having swum in our clothes in the Nile, we realise that this is the only way to stay cool. The air is so hot that my eyes are stinging and a wet sarong over the head brings a lot of relief.
Today seems to be the scheduled departure of the cruise boats from Aswan. As these ugly floating hotels power past us belching out black smoke, we feel pleased to be tacking back and forth quietly across the river. Each time we come close to the river bank before tacking again, there is something interesting to see. Lying on the communal bed with the breeze blowing through the wet cloth over my head, I fall asleep and have the most peaceful, sound sleep that I’ve had for a long time. Having grown up on a boat, it is a beautiful feeling to be asleep on the water.
We stop to pick some mangoes from an orchard and eat them straight off the tree. They are the sweetest I have ever tasted.
Then it is back onto the boat to find a spot to tie up for the night. On the way down river we pass many groups of men just hanging out in the shade of trees waiting to break their fast. Presumably, the women are home cooking the break-fast meal. There are many Islands along the Nile and it is on one of these that we tie up and wait for sunset and the end of the first day of Ramadan.
We swim again and Hassan prepares an apricot liquid with soaked bread and a plate of succulent dates for the crew. Despite having had lunch ourselves, we join them in breaking their fast.
At first the evening is much cooler than the day before but as it gets dark, the hot air blows in again and we wet our sheets in the river and sleep in cool wet beds. We wake, cold and shivering to the murmurings of prayers shortly before the call to prayer echoes across the river from just behind the Island where it seems there is a major town. Each call starts with “Alahu Akbar” which, when you’re asleep, can give you quite a fright. It seems that this morning, anyone with a loud speaker is reciting the Koran. I put all my warm clothes on and drift back to sleep. We wake a couple of hours later to find that we are adrift in the Nile and floating with the current, towards our destination of Dashaw. Amori, the other captain, who is not fasting and therefore seems to be taking more of the workload, is trying to wake Mahkmoud to get him to help. We drift quietly without sails to our end point and we play the guitar and sing a few songs together. I have to play gently so as not to open the crack in the guitar any further.
- Part of Amori’s non-fasting status, sees him smoking his Sheesha pipe at every stop.
We are sad and relieved to be leaving the boat. We desperately want to get out of the heat but it has been a really special experience with beautiful people.
I had wanted to arrive at Kom Ombu by boat, to see the temple from the water, but we haven’t quite made it that far so we complete the journey in the van. Our guide, Akmed, who travelled with us on the boat, is already looking a bit the worse for wear. I think the heat is too much even for the locals and he is , of course, not drinking any water until sunset.
Kom Ombu is the temple of the God Sobek, who has the head of a crocodile. There are many mummified crocodiles here. They seem to do better out of the mummification process than humans.
Seeing the sites in Egypt is becoming a process of dashing from pillar to pillar to any available patch of shade. What is special about Kom Ombu is that we are the only people here. I suppose the cruise boats turn up later in the day, but for now, we are alone and it is magical.
And perhaps a bit overwhelming!
Somewhere between Lom Ombu and Edfu, about an hour away, Louie lapses into a bad mood and decides to lay in the back seat of the van while we visit the Temple of Horus. It’s a bit of a shame because this is the most amazing place so far. Much of the temple was covered with sand and therefore preserved. That didn’t stop the early Christians coming through and etching off the faces of nearly every figure on the walls, but it is still totally majestic. It even still has its roof and all columns intact. We are pleased that Akmed has come with us as he is a wealth of information. We don’t even need to suffer any more multiple wife, camel dowry jokes. Roger seems to find these very funny but Stella squirms uncomfortably when her price is discussed in camels and Arabian horses.
Travelling with a teenage daughter is an interesting experience. In the UAE I felt uncomfortable with the amount of attention Stella was given, as if we were displaying our virgin daughter for perusal. Here, Stella is viewed more like a child and the attention is more focused on me and my obvious child-bearing abilities. I am more comfortable with this as the attention on her seems very creepy.
The temple has multiple rooms including two staircases on either side, one of which depicts all the figures walking up and the other, the figures walking down. Again, because we are the only people here, it is like discovering the temple for the first time. The only other person is the temple guard who keeps shifting from room to room and posing under shafts of light until I finally take a photo and he asks for money.
We arrive in Luxor another hour later and check in at our Air BnB flat that we have rented on the West Bank. Our host Dr Kristie is an American, German Studies professor who is married to Ragab, an Egyptian.
Their flat is in a nice little residential area next to the Nile and feels like home. We visit a local hotel swimming pool with Dr Kristie and spend a couple of hours submersed in the water.
Farah, Ragab’s brother, will drive us round while we are in Luxor. The Valley of the Kings is on the West bank too, so we will go there first thing in the morning. It opens at 6am!
Before bed, we discuss all the things we’re most looking forward to seeing the next day. Jasper talks all about the temple with the huge standing figures outside. Whoops, I think that one’s in Abu Simbel, much further south where we have chosen not to go!
However, there’s nothing disappointing about Egypt. Everywhere you go it is amazing and mysterious and so, so ancient.
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