Winter is the perfect season for travelling around the Nile because of the low temperatures (20-25 degrees). This is why it’s the high season. Normally it’s jam-packed with tourists, but it was rather quiet, they say tourists are staying away because of the Israel-Palestine conflict. This surprised me, since Israel is hundreds of kilometers away from the main areas in Egypt and there’s really nothing to worry about here. We started our trip in Aswan, in the far South of Egypt, followed the Nile up to Luxor and ended up in Cairo.
Egypt is a such beautiful country, you have near-infinite deserts, green oasis, the best diving in the Red sea and a huge amount of history. Most people live around the Nile, this is the lifeblood of the country. We visited so many temples and tombs and learned a lot more about the ancient history of the people.
It is very much a tour operator country. Few people travel it on their own and almost everyone is here with a guide or sightseeing tour. Traveling Egypt by yourself is not easy, it takes persistence, and plenty of Googling to find out where you need to go and how you can get there. Most Egyptians speak very basic English, so when you are asking for information you usually end up using Google translate. I visited this country together with my mom, we’ve been to Egypt a lot of times, so we had some experience how everything works and knew what we could expect.
We started our trip in Aswan, a beautiful city around the Nile at the 1st Cataract. It’s a nice city, with touristic things to do, and the people are generally very nice, as long as you avoid the touristic corniche, which is the path along the Nile. For the first nights we stayed in the Nubian village on the west bank. It was very calm and non-touristic there, with colourful houses made of mud and straw. We had a great view from the roof terrace of the hotel where we sat most of the time.
The first day we took the ferry boat to the centre to get a sim card and explore some of the city, we ate good food, walked through the soukh and tried to get used to everyone asking us to buy things from them. So we were quick to search the Arabic translation of no thank you:“la shukran”. We had to extensively use this during our trip so they would hassle us less. While eating at the corniche at a touristic restaurant, someone asked us to come on a felucca ride, these are little sailboats they use to sail along the Nile and it’s very popular among tourists. He was only asking 5 euros for an hour so we hopped on and enjoyed some great scenic views. I can really recommend taking a ride on one of these felucca. It was very peaceful and quiet being pushed along by the wind without a noisy engine. We went all around Elephantine island and took plenty of pictures. The tour ended up taking 2 hours and we gave the captain some extra as a thank you.
Next morning we got up early to climb up the hill and watch the sunset from Qubbet al-Hawa, also know as the wind dome. It was really close to our hotel but the entrance to the tombs below it didn’t open until 7 am, while the sun rises at 5:30. We walked a bit through the desert, up the hill from the side and waited for the sun to come up. What a sight we had, from up there you can the the entire valley of Aswan. We saw the Nile shimmer as the first sunrays hit it. Waking up this early was hard but moments like these make it all worth it.
While watching the sun come up, the guard from the tombs nearby came up and yelled at us for being up there without a ticket, we promised him we would come down after we were finished and buy a ticket at the entrance, but since we weren’t feeling like paying 10 euros we walked around some of the tombs and then left the way we came.
Today it was time to leave our hotel and head to a nice hostel we found on the other side of the Nile. It’s run by a nice Egyptian guy named Gandhi. We got there quite early and we chilled a bit at the hostel. They have a nice terrace at the bank of the Nile and stairs for taking a swim. That’s exactly what I did. I was warned that the water is cold. They were right, but it wasn’t as cold as I expected. The water was very clean and it was quite nice to cool off. There’s a saying in Egypt: “Once you drink from the Nile, you are destined to return” I did take some sips, and it was quite nice, I might even return one day.
In the afternoon we went to left our bags and went to explore more of the city. We visited the Coptic cathedral, got shown around by a very nice lady who told us all about the building. After that we looked for a place to eat and sat at some random Egyptian café. The people are very accompanying, as soon as they see you they will clean a table for you. All you have to do is sit and they will do the rest.
Egyptians unfortunately do not know the terms waste disposal or recycling. The streets are very dirty, there is garbage everywhere, many stray dogs and cats and even donkeys eating garbage. Honking cars everywhere, and did I mention that it seems like there are no traffic rules at all, everyone is driving all over the road, passing each other left and right. Red lights are optional and regularly ignored. It really seems like chaos.
Crossing the street is fun, you basically just try to find an open spot in the stream of cars, and you close your eyes and go for it. Sometimes it looks like they will hit you, but everyone will avoid you or hit the brakes if they really need to. In the beginning we just wait for a local to cross and then follow him closely. At night there’s a lot of cars driving without lights, only occasionally using their high beams to see what’s coming up.
Last thing we did that day was climb up a hill nearby, look at some old buildings and got some food from a nice restaurant up there. I was scared that they would rip us off and give an expensive bill, but they didn’t. We got a cheap price and the food was delicious.
For last day in Aswan we did a quick visit to the Aswan museum and then we headed towards our Nile cruise. They had planned a packed afternoon for us, and after some lunch they send us off to go sightseeing with a van and a private guide. We visited the unfinished obelisk, high dam and the Philae temple.
The Nile cruise was a great experience, the crew was very professional, the food was great, same for the guides. We had 4 days of temple visits and relaxation on the Nile. Amazing sunsets, comfortable beds and a clean cabin, even a bath.
The first day was in Aswan as previously mentioned, the second day we set sail towards Luxor. On the way there were 2 stops, Kom Ombo temple and Edfu temple. Both of them were great! They were fairly intact, with some colours and nice inscriptions. Our guide explained all of the symbolism behind the hieroglyphics and all of the scenes that were pictured on the temple walls.
The last day of the cruise we arrived in Luxor and had yet another packed day of visits. More about this in part 2.