"Egypt Is The Gift Of The Nile"

"Egypt is the Nile...the Nile has created its limits and gifted it with opulence." - Samuel Cox, 1886

The last day in Aswan was another busy and fun day. We started out with a visit to an ancient quarry. Aswan is famous for its red granite, which you can find in most temples and pyramids. The Egyptians would quarry it here and sail it all over the Nile Valley. At the quarry is a huge unfinished obelisk, which would have been 140 feet high. Three sides were carved out and it was when they were about to finish it that a giant crack appeared and they had to abandon it. Just imagine...200 or so workers, pounding away at the granite for over a year and then the crack appears. I wouldn't have wanted to be that overseer when Pharoah got the news. 

David and Heather underneath an unfinished statue...

“Same dog I got too. We call him Egypt.  Because in every room he leaves a pyramid.” - Rodney Dangerfield

From here we went to the beautiful temple of Isis, also called Philae because it was on the island of Philae. But because of the original Aswan dam, It was 2/3rds submerged in water. So in the 1970s it was dismantled into 40,000 pieces and moved to higher ground in the middle of the lower reservoir. It's a very intact temple from the Ptolomaic times. Sometime around the 6th Century or so it was turned into a Coptic church. The Christians, not liking the images of heathen gods on their "church" destroyed many of the Egyptian carvings. They were the Taliban of their day. 

Boyd, Gail and Marsha...

Graffiti from Napolean's army...

“The black rocks of Elephantine, and the sun, and the little boats on the river.  Yes, it is good to be alive.” - Hercule Poirot, (Agatha Christie), 'Death on the Nile', 1937

In the afternoon, we skipped the tour and spent time in the town. We took a horse carriage up to the Old Cataract Hotel, which was featured in the movie, "Death on the Nile". We had coffee on the terrace overlooking the Nile. 

Coffee with a view...$3. 

Enjoying my coffee...

We then walked through the market, the local non touristic market, looking at local life.  Here is a bakery. This man gave us a piece of unleavened tasty bread right out of the oven. Boy, was it god!

"If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might as well stay at home" - James A. Michener

Amy bought a dress in this shop. When we told the owner here that we were on a tour that had Dr Zahi as a guide, he didn't believe it. So we got out the iPad and showed him. 

We were looking at this Bastet statue made out of granite.  The shop keeper said it had been in his store for 25 years.  But the thing weighed about 30 pounds. When I mentioned it was too heavy for us to lug home, Mr Shop Keeper said that it only weighed 6 pounds. When I looked skeptical, we went next door where there was a scale. As he put on weight after weight, finally running out of lead weights at 15 pounds, we said thanks, but no thanks. 

The locals market, where no one hassles you, but everyone has a smile and says, "Welcome to Egypt and thanks for coming". 

In the evening we went back to the Old Cataract for dinner in the 1902 restaurant, known as one of the best restaurants in all of Egypt. This is a very fancy French restaurant with a five course menu. We went with our new friends, Boyd and Gail. The menu was an amuse bouche of a veggie mousse on toast, then a huge grilled prawn with pistachio, then salmon cannelloni was the third course. The main course was a baked saussman (a local fish) with a tasty red sauce or a lovely veal. Dessert was chocolate delice, whatever that is. We washed it all down with a Chablis and a Beaujolais Fleurie. This was followed by a very nice Armangac.  The menu itself was only 450 Egyptian pounds, or about $55!   Besides one other couple, we were only people in the restaurant. Yes, business is a by slow. 

When we got back to the boat after dinner we had a suprise waiting for us. Our boat was undocked and across the river. Was it leaving for Luxor without us?  What the heck!  We had money for a train ride, but our passports were on board. It was just floating out there, along with four other boats that we were docked with. As it turned out, we were one of the outer boats that were docked together and the  one on the inside had to leave, so all the others, including ours, had to undock and get out of the way. After about an hour of us watching this boat dance, our boat came back and we were able to get back onboard.  Whew!!