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| Taking Tea with Captain Mustafa & Crew |
Those who had chosen to visit Abu Simbel left very early next morning to catch their flight. Instead, Mr DIY & I took another, very relaxing felucca ride with Captain Mustafa, a local Nubian. His crew even made us tea using Nile water, and thankfully, we’ve lived to tell the story! It is said that if you drink from the Nile, you will return one day.
Mr DIY was sadly missing his boat (aka the other woman) so it was with great pleasure we managed a peaceful sail in a traditional, hand built craft. Sadly it ended too soon and Mustafa dropped us off near our waiting cruise ship, MS Melodie.
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| Feluccas on the Nile near Aswan |
Ah, yet another chance to drift luxuriously down the Nile watching out for crocodiles, enjoying vistas of fertile fields, high red cliffs and vast desert-scapes. Not to mention dodging local fishing craft and lots (and lots) of other cruise ships. The Nile is as busy now as it was more than 5000 years ago.
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| Early Morining and lots of Cruise Ships at Kom Obo Temple |
The Nile is some 6700km long with a recorded history equally as long. We were cruising from Aswan to Luxor only, a mere distance of 209km. Still, that took us 3 days. Miss Melodie was comfortably appointed.
We only had our tour group on board and the crew looked after us remarkably well - even helping some of the men adjust their turbans for the evening’s galabia bash! The evening's fancy dress challenge offered loads of laughs. Prize winners of the evening were the couple who dressed as mummies! Now that was fun proving how creative some people can be with a roll of toilet paper or two.
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| Dancing Queens: Dressing up for the Galabia Evening |
Another night we were treated with performances by a belly dancer and a whirling dervish; other aspects of Egypt that we had not delved too deeply into.
Dervishes are a Sufi sect who traditionally use dance to reach religious ecstasy. It has become tourist entertainment largely because of its notoriety as an unusual religious practice. Having said that, it was interesting to note the difference between the Sufi dances performed in other countries.
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| Friendly Crew on Ms Melodie help make a perfect turban |
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| Colourful Dervish |
