Day 113...What's a nubian? -17th October

Woken up by the train conductor and given a small breakfast. While we ae, we enjoyed glimpses of the Nile as we went along. Its blue! I had read stories about it being blue, but thought it would be brown for some reason. We saw Egyptians farming with donkeys and water bufallo. It was so cool! I had my face pressed against the glass.

We arrived shrtly in Aswan (about 1-2 hours behind 'schedule'. Go Egypt!) TINA - This Is North Africa. ahha. After a quick shower at our hotel (which was done up in a weird Islamic/Vegas pink) we went on some touirs. Aswan is home to the Nubian culture. People are more African here. The Nubians were used by the pharaohs in ancient times to mine for gold. And it is only here that they got granite for the whole of Egypt. The first stop we went to was an old Egyptian quarry site. There was a perfectly shaped form of what would have been the largest obelisk ever made. But ther ewas a fault in the granite, with cracks - so it was left unfinished. You could see it almost being birthed out of the rock. You could see all the marks from previous quarrying efforts as well, and struggled to think how long ago that was. Walking around felt like walking over a kitchen bench, with sparkly grey and pink granite everywhre. I wanted to nick some for home! Guards tried to take their photo with us and ask for baksheesh, but we fobbed them off. They are pretty ok, although they try and leap in a picture - if you tell them later that you're not going to pay they say its ok and don't push.

Man, it was a hot day too! Near or in the 40's. The winds were so hot and didn't give much relief. I had a long top on and a scarf and felt pretty hot. But the long shirt helped from burns and kept me cooler than being fully in the sun.
After that, we went to the 'high dam' (past the british one on the way). It is the largest dam in the world or something. It is both good and bad. Good? It suplies power to Egypt and the UK as well. It has also controlled the height of the Nile for 'lower' egypt. Remember- although the Nile comes from the south and flows to the north - north is 'lower' and south is 'upper'. The reason of this is because of ancient times. The elevation from the south is higher, coming from Ethopia and Sudan and stuff so it is the 'upper' nile. Then it flows down into the ocean which is the 'lower' nile. Crocodiles are only in the upper Nile now, with nets at the dam to stop them from getting grilled up in the machinery and buggering it all up. The people have killed all the crocs and hippos in teh lower nile now, as they kept getting eaten by them. Mohamed said the nile crocodile is now prolific in teh upper part - he's seen them and they're huge!
The bad part of teh dam? Aswan is home to the Nubians. They existed in ancient times and the dam flooded over their villages, heritage and culture. Alot of ancient sites disappeared under the water.
It was a dam, but a dam is a dam. I got bored in 2 seconds. Luckily we didn't stay long and headed for PHilae Temple.

Philae temple was accessed by a little boat. It was flooded when the dam was built, but it was moved - brick by brick - 100 metres away to higher ground. People used to have to explore it by boat. It was our first really proper Egyptian temple and we were pretty impressed! It was in the Graeco Roman period (you can tell by the flowery design at the top of the columns - the Greeks built lots of temples to pacify the Egyptians about their take-over). Our old pal Hadrian was there too , adding some arches at the back. We are finally at the southern end of his influence! It only took about 3-4 months. What a guy! Love his work. (For those who don't remember, he did Hadrians Wall in the UK near Scotland, did work in Rome and Greece, and now here).
The way temples are done, is that they cover the stone with a plaster type stuff, then stamp the heiroglyphics in with stencils. So its not hand done. And its not chiselled in stone either. The big bodies are done by hand though. It was amazing to see the 3d effect of them, they had shaped the thighs and stomach realistically. The faces - alot of them were later defiled by Christian idiots who chipped multiple marks all over the faces. THe figures were ok. The belief was that you remove the evil by removing the face. Some 19th century grafitti was there too.

The temple was dedicated to the falcon god Horus. It had many large sanctums working their way back via large wooden doors (no longer there) to the final sanctum where the god and his statue resided. There wre heiroglyphics talking about the pharaoh, showing him giving offerings to the God and the gods family. Beer, wine, milk and roast chicken. Yum.

it was a bit like being awestuck there - tracing your hands over the markings like some Egyptian explorer movie. Indian Jones or The Mummy or something! The lights lit the place in an eerie light and I needed to don an akubra or something. I also had fun taking photos of all the Arab security who were fast asleep. SOme were fully lying down with their towels over their faces. We went during lunch, and nearly had the temple to ourselves. So perhaps the guards thought it was ok to nap then. When we got of the boat after the temple, all the tour busses where turning up.

Oh my god, and hows this?! - We returned to the hotel for a late lunch. Mohamed left us and Nathan sat by a window in the lobby and chilled out. Suddenly I heard lots of yelling and looked out to see two staff members. One ran up to the other and fully punched him in the face! A fight ensued and I was much entertained until the manager ran up to our window and shouted at them. He apologised to us and explained with Ramadan, tempers flare easily. One had insulted the others gardening. The manager dawdled off and the guys moved on. Nathan and I continued our lunch until we ehard a loud "whack!". I popped my head out the window, and saw them further up the road going at each other with sticks! They were bashing each other with sticks while some other staff smoked cigarettes and watched. They caught me looking and moved the two guys on, but I was totally amused!

In the arvo, we went for a felucca ride. A felucca is the traditional sailing boat of the Egyptians. I felt like Tatia in River God. Our sailors name was Captain Mohamed and he was quick to inform us that he was an Arab man, not a Nubian man. He was a very friendly guy, and asked if we liked music. We said sure, that's fine, expecting that "aaah aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhahhhh" wailing crap we've beeing hearing in all the Egyptian cars. Instead, on came G-unit! And black eyed peas and Snoop Dog and stuff. We did a little dance around the boat and enjoyed the view of the Nile with tombs of the nobles on the sandy cliffs ahead. We then turned around for home and... the wind just stopped.
We crawled (barely) at snails pace. I enjoyed the still waters and we took forever to pass Elephantine Island ( called that when the elephants were transported past here and they bathed at that island). We crawled along though. And crawled. It started to get dark. The call to prayer sounded. The fasting was lifted for the day. Poor Captain Mohamed started getting scratchy, and asked us if we had any water, biscuits, chocolate, anything. Unfortunately we didn't. He started losing it as there was no wind and we weren't going anywhere, and he hadn't eaten or drank all day poor bastard. Eventually we had to leap onto another boat, a motorised water taxi which took us back late to Mohamed our tour dude.

Mohamed had eated a bit so there was no rush as we made our way into the Aswan bazaar. We wandered a bit and he took us to a great seafood restaurant that we wouldn't have looked twice at. We trust him as he's taken hundreds of brits and aussies here and they don't get sick. He has to, or he can't take them on their tour can he? At the restaurant you picked your fish or prawns or whatever and they cooked it however you want. We got big bowls of complementary stuff like bread and some dips I can't remember the name. agh ach ach or something arabic. haha. I tried a date for the first time in my life. In Ramadan its used to break the fast. It was quite sweet and I'm not sure about it.

After that we wandered the souqs. We left Mohamed and realised what a great influence he is, when we got promptly bombarded by touts. "come look at my store, look look". The funny ones though was that I was beautiful, Nathan was a lucky guy and how many camels did he want for me? haha. We haggled and got a cheap long white shirt for me (I don't have many long light tops, only singlets which is a big nono. I mean, I've seen women scrambling over the ruins in hot pants and singlet! But its disrespectful, we're in someone elses country and I want to do the right thing. And even that, I'm a young western girl so I get noticed.) The haggling was hard work! They try hard, but Mohamed informed us earlier what price we could get. I'm glad he did coz I would have broken long before! The guy tried to seal the deal with a kiss so I lied and said I was married to Nate so he backed off. phew.

The place was bustling with women shopping for the end of Ramadan, men sitting by and smoking sheeshas. We joined Mohamed for a sheesha and spent a fair while together having a good laugh and smoking and watching the action go past. We also tried date juice which was really sweet and nice. After that we headed back to our hotel for bed.