Cruising Down the Nile. . .I Guess

We rented horses and rode around the pyramids, chased by local cops because we hadn’t paid the entrance fees. We were assured that had been taken care of. And we also saw Saqqara, at least a thousand years older than the famous ones. Then we blew out. We’re on the over night luxury train from Cairo to Luxor. A private compartment, with wonderfully soft beds and dinner brought to us. How that happened is a tale in it self. I’ll do it later. Anyway we decided to go south on this wondrous train and then take a taxi down to Aswan, see the Nile dam, get a good look at Abu Simbel in Nubia and come back on a river cruise.

Luxor was great. We hired a guide, did the Valley of the Kings, the huge ruins of the royal palace at Karnak with three thousand year old lions glaring at us as we entered. This is where Ramses built his eternal city. It’s a blast! Then our driver took us down to Abu. Simbel. Wow! There’s a temple cut right out of the rock face with columns stretching up forty feet. All underground! The door is guarded by four sitting kings each about fifty feet tall. It’s awesome. The statues have since been moved to higher ground to save them from the flooding of a new artificial lake. So it goes.

We come back the 200 miles the next day and decided to look into the cruise. This is fun. There’s about twenty boats at the dock. Each one looking like a small time Cruise ship. You go from one to the other, bargaining! Marilyn loves to do this. I like to look around. Each boat is decked out with bars, slots and dance floor. But the main reason for the cruise is not stopping at all the wonderful ruins, it’s the food!!! Eat 24-7 if you want. We bargain five of them and are thinking about which one to take. We’re standing beside the richest looking boat when this guy rides up on a donkey, with two very large metal tubs straddling the beast. He climbs down and dumps two big clumps of raw bleeding meat on the dock. It’s about 95 degrees. The cement dock hasn’t been cleaned since Ramses IV, I guess. He rides off. We go to a café and sit. The meat’s there for at last two hours. He comes back twice more. Then two or three guys come down and cart it on board. We look at each other and decide we are not going to cruise the Nile.

But we did go out to the Hilton for dinner that night and Marilyn broke one of our rules for travel. Never drink anything that is not popped in front of you and does, fizzle. She had Sangria, made from Nile water and she really got sick. The "doctor" gave her medicine used to cure Typhoid fever and she sat under the shower trying to bring her fever down, until the hotel turned the water off. Another tale for later. I rented a Taxi to take us back to Cairo. It was air conditioned, and he drove very well. I told him if he scared us, no tip! On the way, I got to get out and see the various pornographic temples, but Marilyn was too sick, too weak to do anything but sleep. It took three days to get back to our hotel. By that time she was feeling okay again.

Looking back. Places to go if you make this journey. Philae Island, unreal. Everything in Luxor. Deir-el-Bahri, a huge palace carved out of a rock face. Plus all of the above. I wish I could put photos up, but go look for yourselves and plan to take in Egypt. February is good, avoid it in summer. And oh yeah, go to Alexandria. It’s a gas and a half. But be careful what and where you eat, and what you drink.