Friday 30 December
During the night just about at midnight the boat docked at Edfu. I was awake and decided to eat a plain bread roll Jarrah had brought me from dinner and to drink some water. I chatted to Jarrah a bit then we both went back to sleep.
We were awoken early again in the morning at 5.30 and Ahmed had arranged for us to have a juice drink at the restaurant at 6am. I was glad of this since I hadn’t eaten dinner the night before and I was feeling much much better. At 6.30 we left the boat for the temple. We took two horse carriages, Jarrah and Jade in one and Paul and myself in the other with Ahmed sitting with the driver. The temple was about a 15 minute carriage ride away. The town of Edfu seems to be very poor. The streets were dirty and without curbs or footpaths. Our carriage was the first to arrive at the temple and Ahmed got the guard to open the gate. The courtyard where all the carriages park had shops all on one side. Most were closed and we thanked our lucky stars that we weren’t going to have to run the gauntlet of sellers. As we passed one shop, however, I saw a scarf that I’d seen in Abu Simbel and I decided to get it. I bargained with the seller and got it for 30 Egyptian pounds—about $A9. I probably could have paid less but I’m happy with it.
The temple at Edfu has its very tall walls still standing because for hundreds of years the temple was buried in sand. This has preserved it for today. This temple also has its roof which is amazing! It is just hard to comprehend that the sculptures we are seeing are thousands of years old and if I touch them I am touching a place that someone who lived tens of generations before me touched. I should say there is absolutely nothing preventing anyone from touching the walls or columns of the temples. There are no signs or Perspex coverings over the sculptures. I guess there is too much to cover. But there is also nothing preventing the pigeons from roosting on these historic ruins.
We returned to the boat at 8.30 in time for breakfast—our first hot breakfast on this cruise—and sailed on towards Luxor. Around 12.30pm we approached the Esna lock and the fun began. I noticed one or two rowboats in our path and at one point motioned to the guys in the boat to get out of the way. Then one of the men stood up and held up a galabea for sale! OMG! The sellers were rowing out to meet the boat. Not only that but they were wrapping up items in plastic bags and throwing them up 3 floors to the boat’s sundeck. Various people were then negotiating over the items or not. Prices were agreed on or not and the items were either tossed back to the sellers or the sellers threw up another bag with clothing in it for the money to be put in and thrown back down. I bargained for several towels which were very nice but the sellers wouldn’t meet my price so I didn’t buy. Jade has seen a very nice blue and red towel with the pyramids and sphinx on it that she wants so we will have to negotiate further at Luxor tonight.
At 1.10 we were called down to lunch. This was right as the boat was going into the lock so we didn’t get to watch this from the sundeck. After lunch we returned to our rooms. I collected up clothes and did a big wash in the bathtub. Then I rested and watched some TV for a while before going up to the sundeck for tea With having been sick and also with having been on the boat for over a day when it was docked I feel that I haven't gotten as much of the shipboard life lazily cruising on the river as I would have liked.
The ship docked at Luxor about 5pm and since we had decided to go to the Sound and Light Show at Karnack Temple we got ready to leave. We met Ahmed at 6.15 and took two horse carriages to the temple for the show, which was at 7pm. The show was very good and professionally done wtih very dramatic music and recordings done by professional actors (someone said that they included Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor) presenting the history to us. We walked through the temple in stages as the lights and recordings explained each area to us and the show finished up in a benched seating area which overlooked the sacred lake (Jade called it the swimming pool). There was a lot of history to take in but it was a worthwhile experience.
Ahmed met us at the end of the show and we took the carriages back to the boat for a late dinner. Since we were eating at 8.40 we noticed that several of the tables were empty and thought that that was because we were late. However, later Ahmed said that some people left the boat already to catch flights or to continue their tours.
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