All Aboard for Aswan!

Today began early, once again.  We had to catch a train to Aswan, and Mohamed, our wrangler was particularly anxious about punctuality.  The Egyptian train schedule, it seems, is subject to sudden fluctuations, usually of the overdue kind, but occasionally of the early kind.  Check-out at the hotel was complicated by, what appears to have been a management gambit to extract more money from the guests.  I was presented with a bill for wine at dinner, which I offered to pay with my 39 year chip from Alcoholics Anonymous, and tour friends in front and behind were charged for items from their mini-bar which they had not used.  This was only the final chapter in the story of the stay at Sofitel Pavillon Winter Luxor.  The front desk staff were surly, the floor staff were greedy, the cleaning staff was haphazard and did not replace bottled water that was used (room service would bring more for a fee, of course, a clear warning sign for the check-out debacle soon to follow), and the food choices in the dining room, while tasty, well prepared and well served, were meager by tourist hotel standards.

The departure from Luxor paid one nice benefit.  Mohamed became a little more engaging.  He half-way apologized for his drill sergeant behavior by explaining that he was trying to maintain a schedule set by Road Scholar which did not take into account the vicissitudes of Egyptian travel.  He had plenty of time, since, truer to form than not, the train arrived 45 minutes late.  Mohamed's relieved comment was, "It was almost on time!"

Your carriage has arrived!

There was a further delay occasioned by the make-over of the sleeping car into a day "coach."  This included waking up some of the inhabitants of the compartments which had been reserved for our group, and waiting for the porters to complete their day-time transformation.  It was worth the wait!

Sleeper car turned compartment (with box breakfast and sun hat)

I haven't a lot to say about the rail trip which took about three hours.  Egypt Rail served a nice breakfast tray, in addition to the box breakfast we took away from the hotel.  Overall the trip reminded me of rail travel on the old Illinois Central in the 1960's.  About that bad!  Lunch at a local restaurant upon arrival seemed a little redundant, but as a life-long member of the "clean plate club," I upheld the required standards. 

After lunch, it was off to the Nubian Museum.  This was a wonderful museum which received no where near the attention it deserves.  If I ever return to Egypt, high on my to-do list will be a day at the Nubian Museum in Aswan.  Once again, time  did not permit more than a thorough introduction to what we were missing.

Nubian Pharaoh

 At the end of the New Kingdom of Egypt, the Kingdom of Kush became the predominant power along the Nile, and for the next generations, all the Pharaohs were black.  Much of this history is incorporated in the Nubian Museum, including detailed exhibits of life in Nubian villages, farms, fisheries, cities and fortifications.  Of course, the lighting was dark and no flash was allowed, so pictures of these exhibits are unusable.  This is a history that fascinates me, and maybe I'll get around to studying it, one of these days.  One of the theories about the famous biblical "Queen of Sheba" is that she was from Kush, hence her title "Kandake," a title reserved for Queens or mothers of Kings in the Kushite dynasties.

Detachment of Nubian Soldiers armed for battle

A model of a  typical Kushite fortification

Our next adventure was a sail on the Nile in one of the more-less-traditional model sailing vessels that have been the work horses of commerce for centuries.  Not much to report, here.  We sailed up river for a few miles, tacking all the way under full sail, then turning for a leisurely return to the dock and onto another motorized craft to take us to our Movenpick Hotel, Swiss, I'm told, on an island in the middle of the Nile.  It was definitely an improvement although making the trek from the boat launch to the hotel lobby, up tiers (and tiers) of steps, which we had to do several times, quickly grew old.

Sailing the Nile, bustling with tourists.

Movenpick Hotel, our island home in Aswan

 We had a couple of hours before our next departure.   Some of our company took the water shuttle back across the river to shop in the local market, which had been touted to us as "the place to buy authentic souvenirs.  Having been up since 3:30 am, and with an evening schedule yet to meet, I thought a nap would be a better use of my time.  As it turns out, I was right.  The shoppers came back disappointed, and I was ready for the next agenda item.

That was a tour of the Philae Temple, an important temple to Isis, which was dismantled and reconstructed in Aswan before it would have been lost forever under the waters of Lake Nasser.  It is truly an impressing temple, and all the more so for the engineering and construction genius that has preserved it.  The big attraction was to be a sound and light show at the temple, which turned out to be some sort of really bad re-enactment of a dialogue between the River God and Isis about the changelessness of the eternal realities (I think), with upper crust British actors who must have received their thespian training in high school Greek drama.  I think I speak for the entire group when I say it was the nadir of the entire tour.  A few nice pictures, though.

Philae Temple of Isis at night