Becca Weasel and "Tom of Arabia" (licence number 2)
McOffice in Aswan - our second home for two weeks
James family at Edfu Temple with statue of Horus
Yes, I have been on a camel
Tough time in Dahab - Bedouin Corner
20 October 2008
Photos from Egypt
Becca Weasel and "Tom of Arabia" (licence number 2)
McOffice in Aswan - our second home for two weeks
James family at Edfu Temple with statue of Horus
Yes, I have been on a camel
Tough time in Dahab - Bedouin Corner
On the road again!!
Two weeks in Aswan, Aish!
It is long enough to realise that Egypt is not the Sudan! Dealing with the gippos is very trying. You need to haggle for the price of everything from a Coke to a cucumber. The moment you enquire about a price you can see the split second hesitation while they decide how far they can inflate the price.
Our haven was the rooftop pool deck at the Hathor Hotel, our oasis in a desert of thieves! From there we had a bird’s eye view of other tourists running the gauntlet of the “Hello… felucca?” in a pseudo American accent, followed by “Taxi, Carriage, Boat to Kitchener Island?” and we could also watch the passing Nile Cruise ships. You know you’ve been in Aswan too long when the same boats you saw leaving for Luxor are now coming back!
Not to say that the only thieves were the traders and touts, the government is in on the act too. This was blatantly apparent when Tom Cruiser finally arrived and we started the 2 day run-around to get him back. Customs was easy, the carnet was signed and we were off to the traffic police for step 2. This meant visiting each window in a smoky hall and handing over some money at each, even for a folder to store the million pieces of paper we were accumulating in. We then took one of the policemen back to the port where they take a rubbing of the engine and chassis numbers from the vehicle. Luckily our taxi driver had done this before and he was brilliant at keeping everything on track. It is impossible to manage this process without an Arabic speaker. Of course our traffic cop and his sidekick wanted baksheesh because they were working after 12 o clock on a Saturday! I told them, via the taxi driver, that we had travelled for 5 months without paying a bribe and weren’t about to start now.
Day 2 in the process found us at the offices of the government-owned insurance company and here comes an example of legislated extortion. The cost of the insurance is fixed as an annual premium, regardless of whether you need cover for one day, one month or one year. Talk about a rip-off. From there, back to the traffic police to pick up our number plates after watching our file going through about 10 steps before being signed off and sent to data capture – a process just crying out to be computerised. So after at least 10 hours continuous run-around over the 2 days we were nearly ready to get Tom back, nearly that is before paying the traffic police to release the car from the port!! The final nail – aaargh!
So…what have we been eating in Aswan? What a good question Linda! No, it hasn’t been all McDonald’s, although they do make a tasty McArabia, which is chicken or kofta in pita.
We have bought loads of the Arabian bread which is flat pita bread baked in massive street ovens, found at strategic points in the souk. The real price for them is EP1 for 20 loaves! It took us a couple of tries before we got this right. We were charged EP1 for 4, then for 10 and finally for 20. Hard bargaining required here!! The Egyptian meals generally consist of a soup, tahina and pita bread, salad, followed by grilled chicken, kofta (spicy mince meat rolls) or kebabs (usually lamb) served with rice (studded with bits of pasta), vegetables (aubergine and others in a tomato-ey sauce) and a pudding of fruit or a blancmange-like thing.
Street food was mainly chicken or beef schwarmas in pita or koushary which is a tub of rice and pasta with a tomato sauce, bits of onions and a sprinkling of chick peas – both very yummy.
Convoy-time
Kaz and Rebecca had packed up and checked out in time for the 2pm convoy northwards. Rebecca had been given handfuls of stuff when we said goodbye to the McDonald’s staff – McOffice will really miss us!!
We were hoping to stop at the temples of Kom Ombo and Edfu en route to Luxor. It turns out that only the 8 am convoy actually stops there so we opted to accompany the afternoon convoy as far as Kom Ombo, stay overnight, and then catch the next morning convoy to Luxor via Edfu.
What a good move! We arrived at Kom Ombo, ditched the convoy, and had the whole place to ourselves until some of the cruise ships docked and their passengers came ashore. The temple is situated on the Nile river and is very impressive. Our first Egyptian temple! We camped in the car park under the watchful eye of the guards. The Egyptians seem to have ordinary police, traffic police, Tourism and Antiquities police, and then there’s the military as well. A selection of all of them seems to be crawling all over the tourist sites.
Edfu was a real eye opener for us. The concentration of tourists was incredible - it gave us instant claustrophobia - so much so we first decided not to visit the temple and instead sat in the car park and had our coffee. As the hordes had then thinned out a bit, we changed our minds and went in…what a good move. It is the best preserved temple in Egypt and the statues and the hieroglyphics are amazing. Even BW, who we thought would suffer from temple-fatigue, was happy to wander around until it was time to take our place in the convoy to Luxor.
In Luxor, we made our way to Rezeiky Camp where we set up camp under the shady trees. What a relief to be away from the hustle and bustle of the city. I know I’m going on a bit about the tourists, but we can’t remember when we’ve been around so many people since visiting DisneyWorld nearly 20 years ago!!
The rest of Africa just doesn’t do tourists like Egypt does tourists, that’s for sure!
We made an early start to the Valley of the Kings which is on the west bank of the Nile river. This stretch of the river is quite amazing: it is home to the valleys of the kings and queens, various temples and loads of tombs. We watched the hot air balloons floating above the Colossus of Memmon which are…. well… quite colossal! They are two 18 metre high seated granite statues. We set off for the Valley of the Kings and visited the tombs of Tuthmosis IV, Ramses IV and IX. We tried to visit one from each of the XVIII, XIX and XX Dynasties. Three tombs (there are more than 10 to choose from) are included in the price of the entrance ticket. We then paid over a small prince’s ransom to visit the smallest tomb of them all, that of Tutankhamen. This to put into context the treasures retrieved from the tomb if we visit the Cairo Museum. What were the tombs like? Well, they were all very impressive in their own right.
The colourful walls are generally painted with pictures showing the pharaohs with the various gods, mainly Horus, Isis and Anubis, others covered in hieroglyphics and the quarried tunnels (painted or not) through to the tomb chamber are quite incredible especially if you keep in mind that they are 3500 years old. Rebecca was particularly intrigued by the goddess Nut who swallowed the sun each night at sunset and then gave birth to it again at sunrise the next morning. There were graphic paintings, generally on the ceiling, showing this goddess with the sun travelling through her body.
We drove back to Luxor, after our obligatory coffee stop, with a quick detour into the parking of the temple of Hatshepsut to take a photo.
The next morning found us at the Temple of Karnak at 7am. It was an easy walk from the campsite. The impressive feature of the temple was the 134-column Great Hippostyle Hall, which is the same size as Notre Dame. The temple itself is huge, spread over a large area and even boasts a Sacred Lake.
We caught up on some washing (sorry, no time to check out the wi-fi at the Luxor McOffice) and caught the afternoon convoy to Safarga on the Red Sea. The president was also in Luxor but obviously didn’t know we were there so he didn’t pop in. We did wonder about the window dressing going on, painting kerb stones and planting trees, from Aswan all the way through to Luxor, while one street back from the main roads the streets were still full of rubble and litter and generally an eyesore.
The road from Safarga along the Red Sea to Hurghada was dual carriageway and in good repair so we trundled along quite happily. We drove into Hurghada looking for a campsite and unfortunately the one marked on the GPS had been a campsite once upon a time but not anymore. Hurghada is worse than we imagined! It is wall to wall resort, bright lights, souvenir shops, package tourists and restaurants. Yep, the James’s idea of hell on earth! We had a quick bite to eat and decided to head on to the first police checkpoint and camp wild. Well, we ended up driving until just before midnight when we drove into a parking spot near the coast and slept in the car. It was too windy to put up the tent. Rebecca was happy on the back seat and we put in some practice for flying cockroach class back to SA wedged as we were in the front seats.
At least we had put some kays behind us and Sinai was not too far away. To be honest we hadn’t missed any spectacular scenery as this stretch of the coast is either littered with oil and gas fields or ugly tasteless resorts.
Suez to Sinai
We drove into the fairly large town of Suez where diesel is dearer than Aswan which I found strange given all the oil refineries around. We found our way to the tunnel, which goes under the Suez canal, and before we knew it we were in Sinai. We drove around looking for the best spot for our coffee stop but the place is wall to wall security. There are even manned machine gun posts every 20m as one enters the tunnel. We finally “coffee’d” on the site of a Croatian refugee camp during WWII which is now a memorial and cemetery. Watching the super tankers gliding through the desert up the Suez Canal is a really strange but compelling sight; we could have stayed there watching for ages.
The road to Nuweiba on the eastern shore of Sinai in the gulf of Aqaba was our next stop. The drive through the Sinai Desert was bleak as the road wound through towering granite mountains and inhospitable desert. . If it wasn’t for access to the Suez Canal I can’t see why anyone would want to go to war for this piece of real estate!
There were a couple of police checkpoints who were interested in our nationality and wanted to check passports.
We found Nuweiba and checked into the El Waha campsite for two nights. After our long couple of days in the saddle, we felt we deserved a rest day. The campsite was deserted and we were camped right on the beach. That night we watched the moon rising over Saudi Arabia (18kms across the water!) and the gulf. It was our first beach camp since Mombasa over 3 months earlier! Wow, how time flies! We had a nice, lazy day swimming and snorkelling with BW. That evening we feasted in the restaurant on fresh fish caught that afternoon (we watched the fisherman deliver his catch to the kitchen!)
Dahab – dis is de place, mon!
So many people had told us to go to Dahab, just a short hop southwards from Nuweiba, that we decided to see what all the fuss is about. Our drive through the town didn’t highlight anything special except for the plethora of dive schools and divey hotels. We drove along the coast until we couldn’t go any further and then decided to check out the accommodation options. Camping doesn’t seem to be one of them. Our two nights in Nuweiba had been complimentary (don’t ask – it’s a long story) so we didn’t mind splashing out a little on a decent place to stay.
We chanced upon a place called Mirage Village which was right on the beach, looked very well kept, had parking for Tom and a vacant room so we took it. We walked along the esplanade (what a posh word) and found out why this place attracts so many people. The beach front is lined with Bedouin style restaurants with cushions and loungers just spilling out onto the beach. There are dive classes and snorkellers doing their thing just off the beach as well. No wonder that everyone we spoke to ended up staying here longer than they first planned. This place isn’t laid back, it’s positively supine!
Our first snorkel decided us on staying an extra night. Not even 10 metres from the beach there is a reef wall which is fantastic, especially for Rebecca who is keen on seeing the fish but still not mad keen on the “deep end”. At the Lighthouse site where we snorkelled, the deep end does drop off the wall down to 10 metres and I’m sure in the bay, deeper still. Great for clown fish, scorpion fish and the other typical reef inhabitants too. If the wind drops a bit (windy in the morning, but dies off in the afternoon) there is an eel garden dive site which is also supposed to be good for snorkelling. Hopefully we’ll check it out later today and let you know!
It is long enough to realise that Egypt is not the Sudan! Dealing with the gippos is very trying. You need to haggle for the price of everything from a Coke to a cucumber. The moment you enquire about a price you can see the split second hesitation while they decide how far they can inflate the price.
Our haven was the rooftop pool deck at the Hathor Hotel, our oasis in a desert of thieves! From there we had a bird’s eye view of other tourists running the gauntlet of the “Hello… felucca?” in a pseudo American accent, followed by “Taxi, Carriage, Boat to Kitchener Island?” and we could also watch the passing Nile Cruise ships. You know you’ve been in Aswan too long when the same boats you saw leaving for Luxor are now coming back!
Not to say that the only thieves were the traders and touts, the government is in on the act too. This was blatantly apparent when Tom Cruiser finally arrived and we started the 2 day run-around to get him back. Customs was easy, the carnet was signed and we were off to the traffic police for step 2. This meant visiting each window in a smoky hall and handing over some money at each, even for a folder to store the million pieces of paper we were accumulating in. We then took one of the policemen back to the port where they take a rubbing of the engine and chassis numbers from the vehicle. Luckily our taxi driver had done this before and he was brilliant at keeping everything on track. It is impossible to manage this process without an Arabic speaker. Of course our traffic cop and his sidekick wanted baksheesh because they were working after 12 o clock on a Saturday! I told them, via the taxi driver, that we had travelled for 5 months without paying a bribe and weren’t about to start now.
Day 2 in the process found us at the offices of the government-owned insurance company and here comes an example of legislated extortion. The cost of the insurance is fixed as an annual premium, regardless of whether you need cover for one day, one month or one year. Talk about a rip-off. From there, back to the traffic police to pick up our number plates after watching our file going through about 10 steps before being signed off and sent to data capture – a process just crying out to be computerised. So after at least 10 hours continuous run-around over the 2 days we were nearly ready to get Tom back, nearly that is before paying the traffic police to release the car from the port!! The final nail – aaargh!
So…what have we been eating in Aswan? What a good question Linda! No, it hasn’t been all McDonald’s, although they do make a tasty McArabia, which is chicken or kofta in pita.
We have bought loads of the Arabian bread which is flat pita bread baked in massive street ovens, found at strategic points in the souk. The real price for them is EP1 for 20 loaves! It took us a couple of tries before we got this right. We were charged EP1 for 4, then for 10 and finally for 20. Hard bargaining required here!! The Egyptian meals generally consist of a soup, tahina and pita bread, salad, followed by grilled chicken, kofta (spicy mince meat rolls) or kebabs (usually lamb) served with rice (studded with bits of pasta), vegetables (aubergine and others in a tomato-ey sauce) and a pudding of fruit or a blancmange-like thing.
Street food was mainly chicken or beef schwarmas in pita or koushary which is a tub of rice and pasta with a tomato sauce, bits of onions and a sprinkling of chick peas – both very yummy.
Convoy-time
Kaz and Rebecca had packed up and checked out in time for the 2pm convoy northwards. Rebecca had been given handfuls of stuff when we said goodbye to the McDonald’s staff – McOffice will really miss us!!
We were hoping to stop at the temples of Kom Ombo and Edfu en route to Luxor. It turns out that only the 8 am convoy actually stops there so we opted to accompany the afternoon convoy as far as Kom Ombo, stay overnight, and then catch the next morning convoy to Luxor via Edfu.
What a good move! We arrived at Kom Ombo, ditched the convoy, and had the whole place to ourselves until some of the cruise ships docked and their passengers came ashore. The temple is situated on the Nile river and is very impressive. Our first Egyptian temple! We camped in the car park under the watchful eye of the guards. The Egyptians seem to have ordinary police, traffic police, Tourism and Antiquities police, and then there’s the military as well. A selection of all of them seems to be crawling all over the tourist sites.
Edfu was a real eye opener for us. The concentration of tourists was incredible - it gave us instant claustrophobia - so much so we first decided not to visit the temple and instead sat in the car park and had our coffee. As the hordes had then thinned out a bit, we changed our minds and went in…what a good move. It is the best preserved temple in Egypt and the statues and the hieroglyphics are amazing. Even BW, who we thought would suffer from temple-fatigue, was happy to wander around until it was time to take our place in the convoy to Luxor.
In Luxor, we made our way to Rezeiky Camp where we set up camp under the shady trees. What a relief to be away from the hustle and bustle of the city. I know I’m going on a bit about the tourists, but we can’t remember when we’ve been around so many people since visiting DisneyWorld nearly 20 years ago!!
The rest of Africa just doesn’t do tourists like Egypt does tourists, that’s for sure!
We made an early start to the Valley of the Kings which is on the west bank of the Nile river. This stretch of the river is quite amazing: it is home to the valleys of the kings and queens, various temples and loads of tombs. We watched the hot air balloons floating above the Colossus of Memmon which are…. well… quite colossal! They are two 18 metre high seated granite statues. We set off for the Valley of the Kings and visited the tombs of Tuthmosis IV, Ramses IV and IX. We tried to visit one from each of the XVIII, XIX and XX Dynasties. Three tombs (there are more than 10 to choose from) are included in the price of the entrance ticket. We then paid over a small prince’s ransom to visit the smallest tomb of them all, that of Tutankhamen. This to put into context the treasures retrieved from the tomb if we visit the Cairo Museum. What were the tombs like? Well, they were all very impressive in their own right.
The colourful walls are generally painted with pictures showing the pharaohs with the various gods, mainly Horus, Isis and Anubis, others covered in hieroglyphics and the quarried tunnels (painted or not) through to the tomb chamber are quite incredible especially if you keep in mind that they are 3500 years old. Rebecca was particularly intrigued by the goddess Nut who swallowed the sun each night at sunset and then gave birth to it again at sunrise the next morning. There were graphic paintings, generally on the ceiling, showing this goddess with the sun travelling through her body.
We drove back to Luxor, after our obligatory coffee stop, with a quick detour into the parking of the temple of Hatshepsut to take a photo.
The next morning found us at the Temple of Karnak at 7am. It was an easy walk from the campsite. The impressive feature of the temple was the 134-column Great Hippostyle Hall, which is the same size as Notre Dame. The temple itself is huge, spread over a large area and even boasts a Sacred Lake.
We caught up on some washing (sorry, no time to check out the wi-fi at the Luxor McOffice) and caught the afternoon convoy to Safarga on the Red Sea. The president was also in Luxor but obviously didn’t know we were there so he didn’t pop in. We did wonder about the window dressing going on, painting kerb stones and planting trees, from Aswan all the way through to Luxor, while one street back from the main roads the streets were still full of rubble and litter and generally an eyesore.
The road from Safarga along the Red Sea to Hurghada was dual carriageway and in good repair so we trundled along quite happily. We drove into Hurghada looking for a campsite and unfortunately the one marked on the GPS had been a campsite once upon a time but not anymore. Hurghada is worse than we imagined! It is wall to wall resort, bright lights, souvenir shops, package tourists and restaurants. Yep, the James’s idea of hell on earth! We had a quick bite to eat and decided to head on to the first police checkpoint and camp wild. Well, we ended up driving until just before midnight when we drove into a parking spot near the coast and slept in the car. It was too windy to put up the tent. Rebecca was happy on the back seat and we put in some practice for flying cockroach class back to SA wedged as we were in the front seats.
At least we had put some kays behind us and Sinai was not too far away. To be honest we hadn’t missed any spectacular scenery as this stretch of the coast is either littered with oil and gas fields or ugly tasteless resorts.
Suez to Sinai
We drove into the fairly large town of Suez where diesel is dearer than Aswan which I found strange given all the oil refineries around. We found our way to the tunnel, which goes under the Suez canal, and before we knew it we were in Sinai. We drove around looking for the best spot for our coffee stop but the place is wall to wall security. There are even manned machine gun posts every 20m as one enters the tunnel. We finally “coffee’d” on the site of a Croatian refugee camp during WWII which is now a memorial and cemetery. Watching the super tankers gliding through the desert up the Suez Canal is a really strange but compelling sight; we could have stayed there watching for ages.
The road to Nuweiba on the eastern shore of Sinai in the gulf of Aqaba was our next stop. The drive through the Sinai Desert was bleak as the road wound through towering granite mountains and inhospitable desert. . If it wasn’t for access to the Suez Canal I can’t see why anyone would want to go to war for this piece of real estate!
There were a couple of police checkpoints who were interested in our nationality and wanted to check passports.
We found Nuweiba and checked into the El Waha campsite for two nights. After our long couple of days in the saddle, we felt we deserved a rest day. The campsite was deserted and we were camped right on the beach. That night we watched the moon rising over Saudi Arabia (18kms across the water!) and the gulf. It was our first beach camp since Mombasa over 3 months earlier! Wow, how time flies! We had a nice, lazy day swimming and snorkelling with BW. That evening we feasted in the restaurant on fresh fish caught that afternoon (we watched the fisherman deliver his catch to the kitchen!)
Dahab – dis is de place, mon!
So many people had told us to go to Dahab, just a short hop southwards from Nuweiba, that we decided to see what all the fuss is about. Our drive through the town didn’t highlight anything special except for the plethora of dive schools and divey hotels. We drove along the coast until we couldn’t go any further and then decided to check out the accommodation options. Camping doesn’t seem to be one of them. Our two nights in Nuweiba had been complimentary (don’t ask – it’s a long story) so we didn’t mind splashing out a little on a decent place to stay.
We chanced upon a place called Mirage Village which was right on the beach, looked very well kept, had parking for Tom and a vacant room so we took it. We walked along the esplanade (what a posh word) and found out why this place attracts so many people. The beach front is lined with Bedouin style restaurants with cushions and loungers just spilling out onto the beach. There are dive classes and snorkellers doing their thing just off the beach as well. No wonder that everyone we spoke to ended up staying here longer than they first planned. This place isn’t laid back, it’s positively supine!
Our first snorkel decided us on staying an extra night. Not even 10 metres from the beach there is a reef wall which is fantastic, especially for Rebecca who is keen on seeing the fish but still not mad keen on the “deep end”. At the Lighthouse site where we snorkelled, the deep end does drop off the wall down to 10 metres and I’m sure in the bay, deeper still. Great for clown fish, scorpion fish and the other typical reef inhabitants too. If the wind drops a bit (windy in the morning, but dies off in the afternoon) there is an eel garden dive site which is also supposed to be good for snorkelling. Hopefully we’ll check it out later today and let you know!
03 October 2008
Updated photos
Sunset in our campsite near Meroe Pyramids
A coffee stop in the desert?
My first Pepsi on the ferry to Egypt!!
Slow boat to Egypt
Well, here we are on the ferry Sina en route for Aswan on Lake Nasser and the QE II it most definitely is not. It is a dump.
We have had a fun few days in Wadi Halfa (WH). After arriving on the Thursday we were dreading spending the next 72 hours here as most guide books just refer to it as a “hole”.
Well it certainly wasn’t that bad thanks to the typical generosity and hospitality of the Sudanese. After meeting Mazar, we went to recce a camp site just out of town where the Aussies (our route advisors from their website) had stayed a year previously. It seemed fine. It was on the banks of the lake a couple of kays southwest of WH between 2 fishing shacks. There was no shade but a cooling breeze and a great vista. We made shade with Tom Cruiser and wiled the afternoon away reading and doing Soduko. That evening as it got dark we had visitors, hundreds upon thousands of midges or miggies or as Rebecca calls them “midgets” descended on us as we were the only light source around. We lit a candle and their sheer weight of numbers soon extinguished the flame, talk about kamikaze bugs! Cooking was a challenge and we were soon driven into the tent. No escaping them there either so no Uno game or journalling that night The next day being Friday, we relaxed around our camp and in the afternoon we drove to Mazar’s house to upload our blog and check for emails regarding our Libya crossing. The morning sandstorm that had engulfed the town but not our camping spot had deposited buckets of dust on their shade cloth above the computers. As I was typing the keyboard periodically got clogged with fine sand. Aish!
While we were there, Andy and Edie arrived (first met in Marsabit, Kenya, last seen in Addis fighting the good visa fight). They had also been given the not-so-good news about the ferry and had got moving to make it.
We declined Mazar’s kind offer of dinner and, with Andy & Edie in tow, we headed off to reclaim our spot, pitch tents and eat quickly before the midget onslaught which luckily never materialised.
Saturday, hooray, only one more sleep and we’re off to Egypt. We were to meet Mazar at 9 o clock to go to the local garage for Tom’s oil change. I had dug out my South African 5 l oil bottle to use and would only do the filters in Cairo so it was an easy job really. We needed another 5l can of oil. Of course they only sell 4l canisters here so we needed a further 1 litre. (Things are just never simple) The oil was a good price but the labour was an exhorbitant R40! For all our questioning and probing, we were no closer knowing how or when Tom Cruiser would leave Wadi Halfa and when we would be able to collect him from Customs at Aswan. In fact, as I type this on the high seas, (it’s a lake, dad, not a sea!) we still don’t have a clue. There is a barge having cement offloaded (holidays permitting), which may or may not be the one our vehicles will be loaded onto (also holidays permitting). That’s another thing…no-one can actually tell us when the holidays are. They may start on the Monday or Tuesday and they may continue for 3 or 4 days. Of course then it’s weekend (Friday and Saturday) so it appears, as far as we can deduce, that the earliest Tom will leave Wadi Halfa is next Sunday or is that arrive in Aswan? What we do know is that we are on the ferry while our trusty steed is still in Wadi Halfa.
Filthy Ferry across Lake Nasser
The road into Egypt is heavily mined so the only alternative is the ferry. We bought First Class (term used extremely loosely) tickets which meant we had a private cabin with 2 bunks, air conditioner and a porthole. The beautiful burgundy sheets hadn’t been changed for a while so your skin crawled every time you came into contact with the bunk. We shook the top one out as well as we could and tried not to think about what was underneath. We had access to the top deck which was nice for some fresh air.
The immigration and customs formalities were dealt with by Mazar and went fairly smoothly except for the hanging around all day. We said goodbye to Tom Cruiser and were aboard just after 4pm, and after helping the boys with their bike stuff, we were amazed that the ferry cast off a couple of minutes before 5pm. The quay at Wadi Halfa was interesting as there are roads, complete with street lights, that just disappear into the water. We presume as a result of them raising the dam wall at some stage.
Wadi Halfa faded into the distance and we settled down on board. The toilets were a dreadful mess and only used in an emergency! This boat has not seen any Handy Andy since it was launched, that’s for sure.
At 7pm we went to check out the dinner story as we had meal vouchers. We got roast chicken, macaroni, salad, bread, cheese and jam on a metal tray. Best thing on board so far and Rebecca devoured the chicken. They actually brought free cokes around later, which was nice of them and resonant of the hospitality we received all through Sudan.
We passed the Abu Simbel Temple around 8:30pm and it looked very impressive which huge carved figures on the outside.
Back in the cabin we lay towels on the bunks and covered BW with a kikoi on the top bunk and she was soon asleep. She had played with 3 kittens at Mazar’s house and was heartbroken to leave them. We think we’ll have to get her one when we get home. (She’s expecting a cat & a kitten & already has names for them!!)
The ferry trip was about 300kms and we arrived outside Aswan around 9:30am. With our last meal voucher, we had managed to rustle up an omelette and some bread, tomato and jam for breakfast which was quite tasty. The boat then stopped while a tender came alongside and some people transferred to it. After a longish wait we got moving again and got moored about 12:30. The mighty Egyptian bureaucracy kicked in and after getting our passports stamped on board, we waited an age before we were allowed off the boat, having had to show our passports yet again. Through customs and then into a holding area and then finally, after another show of a passport, we were allowed to walk along the train platform to the outside world. We caught a taxi with Andy & Edie to the Hathor Hotel. The boys stayed with their bikes hoping to clear them through customs same day. Unfortunately it was not to be and they are also playing the waiting game.
Twiddling our thumbs in Aswan
Aswan is a real eye opener. It is the first time this trip we are in such a touristy place. There are souvenir shops galore and all sorts of touts, offering felucca trips on the river, carriage rides, taxis, tours, you name it. But then when you see how many of these massive Nile Cruise ships (we counted around 40 on one of our walks) there are, it is no surprise at all. We are just so not used to it and find it horrendous having to share space with package tourists!
Our hotel, the Hathor, is a winner, Thanks Gideon and Jorien for the advice. We have a river facing room with three beds and air con. The swimming pool is one floor up on the roof with a magical view over the river and the west bank.
The market is one street away and there are loads of restaurants around. The McDonald’s is a short walk up the river. Yes, confession time I’m afraid. Not only have we been into McDonald’s, generally a James’s no-go zone, we’ve even had a meal there and loads of ice cream and coffee!! The reason - free wi-fi network access. It is a pleasure. We are able to keep in touch, sort emails, upload blogs and generally get our lives in order. We believe this access also exists in the Luxor and Cairo branches so, as much as we are not fans, we’ll be there!
The Ramadan holidays have really messed up our timing. Tom Cruiser is still in Sudan. Ramadan ended on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were holidays, today (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday) is weekend so the earliest things start happening is Sunday, and we are still none the wiser as to an arrival time for Tom. Frustrating to say the least.
We have visited Elephantine Island and walked all around the East Bank and will probably go to the Botanic Gardens on Kitchener Island when everyone is back at work after the holidays and the weekend. Together with Andy & Edie, and a German couple and their 2 kids, we took a felucca (like a dhow) cruise around the islands for a couple of hours. Once we got past the haggling over the price and the state of the first boat they wanted us to go on, we had a really nice time seeing the sights from the river.
Our routine at the moment is as follows: Early morning swim before breakfast, breakfast, a walk around or a trip to the office (McD), some lunch, a siesta, a swim and sundowners on the pool deck, find street food (schwarmas are yummy) or a restaurant, back to the hotel and bed. Nice for a while but now we need to move on.
Having said that, we are very lucky to be in a place where the ATMs work, accommodation is good and food is accessible and tasty. The thought of having to stay in Wadi Halfa without a car is not so appealing, so we do sympathise with travellers going south who get caught there without their vehicle.
Now that Ramadan is over, all the shops are open and food is available during the day.
We have had a fun few days in Wadi Halfa (WH). After arriving on the Thursday we were dreading spending the next 72 hours here as most guide books just refer to it as a “hole”.
Well it certainly wasn’t that bad thanks to the typical generosity and hospitality of the Sudanese. After meeting Mazar, we went to recce a camp site just out of town where the Aussies (our route advisors from their website) had stayed a year previously. It seemed fine. It was on the banks of the lake a couple of kays southwest of WH between 2 fishing shacks. There was no shade but a cooling breeze and a great vista. We made shade with Tom Cruiser and wiled the afternoon away reading and doing Soduko. That evening as it got dark we had visitors, hundreds upon thousands of midges or miggies or as Rebecca calls them “midgets” descended on us as we were the only light source around. We lit a candle and their sheer weight of numbers soon extinguished the flame, talk about kamikaze bugs! Cooking was a challenge and we were soon driven into the tent. No escaping them there either so no Uno game or journalling that night The next day being Friday, we relaxed around our camp and in the afternoon we drove to Mazar’s house to upload our blog and check for emails regarding our Libya crossing. The morning sandstorm that had engulfed the town but not our camping spot had deposited buckets of dust on their shade cloth above the computers. As I was typing the keyboard periodically got clogged with fine sand. Aish!
While we were there, Andy and Edie arrived (first met in Marsabit, Kenya, last seen in Addis fighting the good visa fight). They had also been given the not-so-good news about the ferry and had got moving to make it.
We declined Mazar’s kind offer of dinner and, with Andy & Edie in tow, we headed off to reclaim our spot, pitch tents and eat quickly before the midget onslaught which luckily never materialised.
Saturday, hooray, only one more sleep and we’re off to Egypt. We were to meet Mazar at 9 o clock to go to the local garage for Tom’s oil change. I had dug out my South African 5 l oil bottle to use and would only do the filters in Cairo so it was an easy job really. We needed another 5l can of oil. Of course they only sell 4l canisters here so we needed a further 1 litre. (Things are just never simple) The oil was a good price but the labour was an exhorbitant R40! For all our questioning and probing, we were no closer knowing how or when Tom Cruiser would leave Wadi Halfa and when we would be able to collect him from Customs at Aswan. In fact, as I type this on the high seas, (it’s a lake, dad, not a sea!) we still don’t have a clue. There is a barge having cement offloaded (holidays permitting), which may or may not be the one our vehicles will be loaded onto (also holidays permitting). That’s another thing…no-one can actually tell us when the holidays are. They may start on the Monday or Tuesday and they may continue for 3 or 4 days. Of course then it’s weekend (Friday and Saturday) so it appears, as far as we can deduce, that the earliest Tom will leave Wadi Halfa is next Sunday or is that arrive in Aswan? What we do know is that we are on the ferry while our trusty steed is still in Wadi Halfa.
Filthy Ferry across Lake Nasser
The road into Egypt is heavily mined so the only alternative is the ferry. We bought First Class (term used extremely loosely) tickets which meant we had a private cabin with 2 bunks, air conditioner and a porthole. The beautiful burgundy sheets hadn’t been changed for a while so your skin crawled every time you came into contact with the bunk. We shook the top one out as well as we could and tried not to think about what was underneath. We had access to the top deck which was nice for some fresh air.
The immigration and customs formalities were dealt with by Mazar and went fairly smoothly except for the hanging around all day. We said goodbye to Tom Cruiser and were aboard just after 4pm, and after helping the boys with their bike stuff, we were amazed that the ferry cast off a couple of minutes before 5pm. The quay at Wadi Halfa was interesting as there are roads, complete with street lights, that just disappear into the water. We presume as a result of them raising the dam wall at some stage.
Wadi Halfa faded into the distance and we settled down on board. The toilets were a dreadful mess and only used in an emergency! This boat has not seen any Handy Andy since it was launched, that’s for sure.
At 7pm we went to check out the dinner story as we had meal vouchers. We got roast chicken, macaroni, salad, bread, cheese and jam on a metal tray. Best thing on board so far and Rebecca devoured the chicken. They actually brought free cokes around later, which was nice of them and resonant of the hospitality we received all through Sudan.
We passed the Abu Simbel Temple around 8:30pm and it looked very impressive which huge carved figures on the outside.
Back in the cabin we lay towels on the bunks and covered BW with a kikoi on the top bunk and she was soon asleep. She had played with 3 kittens at Mazar’s house and was heartbroken to leave them. We think we’ll have to get her one when we get home. (She’s expecting a cat & a kitten & already has names for them!!)
The ferry trip was about 300kms and we arrived outside Aswan around 9:30am. With our last meal voucher, we had managed to rustle up an omelette and some bread, tomato and jam for breakfast which was quite tasty. The boat then stopped while a tender came alongside and some people transferred to it. After a longish wait we got moving again and got moored about 12:30. The mighty Egyptian bureaucracy kicked in and after getting our passports stamped on board, we waited an age before we were allowed off the boat, having had to show our passports yet again. Through customs and then into a holding area and then finally, after another show of a passport, we were allowed to walk along the train platform to the outside world. We caught a taxi with Andy & Edie to the Hathor Hotel. The boys stayed with their bikes hoping to clear them through customs same day. Unfortunately it was not to be and they are also playing the waiting game.
Twiddling our thumbs in Aswan
Aswan is a real eye opener. It is the first time this trip we are in such a touristy place. There are souvenir shops galore and all sorts of touts, offering felucca trips on the river, carriage rides, taxis, tours, you name it. But then when you see how many of these massive Nile Cruise ships (we counted around 40 on one of our walks) there are, it is no surprise at all. We are just so not used to it and find it horrendous having to share space with package tourists!
Our hotel, the Hathor, is a winner, Thanks Gideon and Jorien for the advice. We have a river facing room with three beds and air con. The swimming pool is one floor up on the roof with a magical view over the river and the west bank.
The market is one street away and there are loads of restaurants around. The McDonald’s is a short walk up the river. Yes, confession time I’m afraid. Not only have we been into McDonald’s, generally a James’s no-go zone, we’ve even had a meal there and loads of ice cream and coffee!! The reason - free wi-fi network access. It is a pleasure. We are able to keep in touch, sort emails, upload blogs and generally get our lives in order. We believe this access also exists in the Luxor and Cairo branches so, as much as we are not fans, we’ll be there!
The Ramadan holidays have really messed up our timing. Tom Cruiser is still in Sudan. Ramadan ended on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were holidays, today (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday) is weekend so the earliest things start happening is Sunday, and we are still none the wiser as to an arrival time for Tom. Frustrating to say the least.
We have visited Elephantine Island and walked all around the East Bank and will probably go to the Botanic Gardens on Kitchener Island when everyone is back at work after the holidays and the weekend. Together with Andy & Edie, and a German couple and their 2 kids, we took a felucca (like a dhow) cruise around the islands for a couple of hours. Once we got past the haggling over the price and the state of the first boat they wanted us to go on, we had a really nice time seeing the sights from the river.
Our routine at the moment is as follows: Early morning swim before breakfast, breakfast, a walk around or a trip to the office (McD), some lunch, a siesta, a swim and sundowners on the pool deck, find street food (schwarmas are yummy) or a restaurant, back to the hotel and bed. Nice for a while but now we need to move on.
Having said that, we are very lucky to be in a place where the ATMs work, accommodation is good and food is accessible and tasty. The thought of having to stay in Wadi Halfa without a car is not so appealing, so we do sympathise with travellers going south who get caught there without their vehicle.
Now that Ramadan is over, all the shops are open and food is available during the day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
