Nubian country

It's been a long time since I blogged, chiefly because I have been too busy entertaining and being entertained :) We are currently in Aswan, the last stop on a river cruise of Luxor, Edfu, Kom Ombo and Aswan. One would imagine that a Nile cruise would be a relaxed, leisurely trip, but each day we've been woken up at 6 or 7am for our sightseeing tours, which doesn't suit me too well. Otherwise, the weather has been great, our rooms were good, the food delicious, and our only objection was being exiled from the deck at times due to inconsiderate under-clothed Europeans.

I discovered that I have a violent allergic reaction to horses when we rode around the pyramids in Giza. It was an unpleasant experience, particularly because my eyelids swelled up and the whites of my eyes turned red..unfortunately at Edfu there was no avoiding the horses as the only way to get to the Temple of Horus was by horse and carriage (or caleche as its called here), giving me some breathing problems for the rest of the day. Sadly, this means I won't be able to join Bikey and the Cow when they go horse riding in Dahab.

We have been turned out of our cruise ship this morning and won't be catching a train until 9.30pm so Mr C has gone for a caleche ride and a visit to the Nubian Museum with Amma (his mum) while I have been getting ripped off in the bazaar and blogging. The felucca rides on the Nile are amazing - the scenery all along the river has been beautiful and a welcome change from the dusty grime of Cairo. It feels like you're in a Famous Five adventure - going off to Kirrin Island or something! You can actually spend 2 or 3 nights in a Felucca doing a proper boat trip, sleeping on deck under the stars etc, but it's a bit difficult logistically with hijab, besides being quite cold and uncomfortable from what I can gather.

I am definitely all Templed out now - i think we've been to five or six in the past four days..although it is amazing that all these buildings have survived for so long. After they built the second dam in Aswan they physically moved six or seven temples to different places as they would have been completely submerged otherwise. When you see them though, you absolutely can't imagine how on earth such huge monuments could have been moved.

I will blog pictures of my bloodshot eyes and the temples etc when we get back to Cairo. I'm going to search the internet for a copy of Death on the Nile now - can you believe it can't be found here? Cheerio.