Day 5 Aswan/The Nile

In the morning after breakfast, I took my mother out to the street I'd walked down yesterday. The boat would sail at 1.00, so we had three hours as we set out. Inside of ten minutes, we found ourselves in a craft store looking for Horus. Mohammed, the storekeeper kept us there for a long time -- I would learn shortly after that many of the shops on the street were owned by a loose bunch of friends (see picture) who shared each other's profits and lived in the same place. While the others remained on the vessel or partook of coffee on the sun deck, I brought two more people from the group to the street. Abdul served my mother some tea as she looked at her e-mail, while I had a Pepsi and a smoke and made friends with Gaba (second from right) who runs a spices shop. He asked me to pay him forty pounds for a bag of dried hibiscus leaves for tea, but I bargained that down to ten. He still made a seven-pound profit, he cheekily told me after my notes had disappeared into his counter. Gaba, Mohammed and Abdul help each other -- they pitch each other's products and services, divert customers toward each other. Abdul, a Nubian from outside Aswan, asked if I wanted to see the Nubian village and museum. We just didn't have the time. Abdul says he hasn't married because its too expensive and is happy living with his brother and friends. He hasn't the first damn clue where his folks are. He, for one, would be happy watching the Muslim Brotherhood come to power in Egypt.

My mother, the other two and I then walk down the shops on the promenade where she buys another Isis, the one with her wings spread. I found Breitling and Rolex watches for 300 pounds a pop, but when I said 300 pounds for both was my last price, I was incredulously dismissed. I slunk back a little embarassed, though those were two of the finest fake watches I had ever seen. Freighted in from Italy at a bare minimum of expense. It was well past noon, so we rushed back to the vessel -- walking across another to get to ours -- and by two, through lunch, we were sailing.

It was a beautiful richly sunny day so it was no surprise that all of us -- except my mother, who inexplicably preferred the cabin -- repaired to the sun deck, stretched out on deck chairs and snoozed. I faced the starboard side which paraded through village after village with thin margins of bullrush hugging the river -- the Nile is not very broad. We were steaming along when I began to write this journal. Other ships like ours either steamed past or were left behind, always with a token blast of their horn probably as a sign of submission. The deck was filled, otherwise, with pink, freckled old foreigners in their bathing suits -- I hate to say that it was not a pretty sight.

About 60-km downstream, twilight had set in as we pulled into the ancient agricultural town of Kom Ombo, one of the trippiest places yet. Clambering up a market-lined front, we winded into the Temple of Kom Ombo complex, built in the second century BC. With the exception of the magnificent sandstone doorway dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile-headed god, by Pharaoh Tuthmosis III, the rest of the temple is almost definitely Ptolemeic (when we had a hard time finding Sobek on the walls, one of us said, "Doctor Sobek is off duty"). Light rapidly faded as we were shown the carvings and then to, in my opinion, the best part -- a chamber with two perfectly preserved mummified crocodiles. In the dark, strategic lights came on lighting the temple up eerily, its Greek roots amplified immeasurably. On an entirely other note, Pope John Paul II was titular bishop in this town from 1958-63 before he was packed off to Krakow.

We bumped into another Indian family from Bengal on our way down from the temple and as a result the group was split, some of us losing ourselves to the market, the other to coffee and sheeshas. After a spot of shopping and a smoke, we got back on the ship and steamed north toward Edfu through dinner -- we reached Edfu when we were asleep, I imagine about 3AM though I can't be sure.