The second thing I noticed is that the door locks on the cab we took looked like this:
Our cabby took us bound for our 5 star hotel, which when split only cost us $50 a night per person. To get to it, you need to float on a raft constructed entirely of the indigenous people who died while constructing it.
We got into our room with some moderate delay at 9 a.m. and promptly crashed until 2 p.m. The hotel is on Elaphantine Island that, for a small island in the Nile, had a bizarre range of environments. It had our fancy hotel, complete with a 15 story tower, and right next to us was a small village of Nubian locals (I’ll explain later), and a lush jungle-like forest. It was very bizarre.
Here's a view of the modest homes of our neighbors:
But if we wanted to go anywhere we had to take a boat that took maybe 5 minutes each way and ran all night.
So when we woke up from our nap we hopped in a cab and headed towards a small island that is/was the sight of the Philae Temples. As we got out and walked away, Tamer informed me that he would call the guy and arrange to have us picked up after we saw the temples. I thought to myself how easy it would be to just find another cab back, but I kept that to myself.
After this we took a small boat through crocodile infested waters (we saw none) and headed to the island the temples were on.
Dur!
One thing about the Arabic world that's different, and pretty weird looking is that two male friends can walk down the street and hold hands and it not be weird. So I did my best attempt to take a photo of this without them noticing ...
Unfortunately they were on to me and this progressed into me taking a photo with them (and you can guess what happened next)
Yep, sure they asked for money. I gave them 2 or 3 Egpytian pounds to split, which totaled less than 75 cents, and walked away happy for my absurd photos.
All those UW professors geeking out about beam column connections should probably look to the past not the future ...
Here's seats used for the sound and light show. The Rolling Stones have performed here for well over a millennium. Get it!?! They're old!
If only Indiana Jones had had a nice newly constructed hardwood floor leading up to all his booty, it would have made his job so much easier.
After seeing the temple we hopped on our return vessel and headed to mainland. We were warned not to put our hands in the river for fear of alligators. Me being the rebel I am, chose to ignore it and paid a steep price.
We then called and patiently waited for our cab driver for quite some time. In the end, Tamer called him 6 times before we finally said “eff it” and hopped in a different cab and headed back to Aswan. Before the night was over the cab driver called Tamer 6 separate times.
We then relaxed at the hotel. Tamer’s old friend Mo (a different one from the one I played poker with) came to meet up with us. Mo and Tamer were friends back from when they were 15 or so, although they lost touch for several years and only recently have regained contact. Mo lives in Cairo working for the Middle East Broadcasting Channel, however he came to Aswan for an extended vacation to de-tox and relax.
Mo came over to the hotel and we hung around for a bit and headed up to the hotel bar on the top of the hotel tower. Unfortunately it was closed so we had to roll out, but I snapped a few photos first.
We then went across the river and had a beer in a big boat floating in the Nile. The tranquility of the moment was interrupted only by occasional sightings of rats as well as the frequent realization that we were three dudes. After an hour or two we called it a night and Tamer and I headed back to our honeymoon suite.
2 comments:
when you said guess what happens next, my first thought was that you held hands with that dude...
I never said I didn't. It was worth every penny.
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