Aswan

Our train pulled into Aswan station around 11:30 this morning. We walked the 1.5 kilometres to our hotel along the Nile. Only 11:30 and it was already over 40C! We got a room at the Hathor hotel, dropped our gear and went straight up to the roof for a swim in the pool. It was exactly what we needed, a dip in the cool refreshing water. The views over the Nile from the pool are fantastic as well. Except for all the cruise ships with their leather skinned old european tourists baking by the pool on the upper deck.

Refreshed, we set out to find a cheap lunch and ended up walking through the town's souqs, or markets. People were busy buying fresh veggies and fruit and going about their daily errands. We found a kushari shop, where we sat out under an umbrella and watched the town go by. The cutest kid kept us entertained. He was looking after his dad's produce stand, but he was being cheeky for us, doing hand stands and clowing around. He had a gorgeous smile and huge dimples.

After a nap by the pool, we wandered around town for a bit. Aswan is a pretty laid back place just 300 km north of the Sudan border. The Nile here is gorgeous, clean (at least it looks clean), and flowing beautifully with lots of feluccas (sailboats). The whole Nile valley is very lush, but the green trees don't extend very far beyond the shores of the river and quickly change to desert and nothingness. It was a bit tiring though, constantly fending off the felucca guys following us down the street trying to get us to sail with them.

We headed to the Nubian Museum, thankful it is open late (until 10:00 p.m.) and air-conditioned! The Nubians are people native to what was once Nubia, an area spreading fromf Aswan in southern Egypt south to Khartoum, Sudan. Most of their traditional lands were wiped out in the 1970s when Egypt built a dam in the Nile and flooded their land. At the museum is a display of all of the ancient tombs and temples that were flooded and now lay under the Nile, gone forever. They did remove some of these and shifted them to higher ground, but most of them are now underwater. It is a great little museum.

Afterwards we enjoyed a few cold beers at a restaurant on the water before having dinner, then another night dip in the pool before bed.