Thursday, June 12th
After waking up god-awful early, earlier for Megan as she had to change and shower and stuff, we headed down for the breakfast. It turned out this was free and there was much rejoicing. By 7, we were heading out to the train station, only to find out it was delayed and were stuck there for awhile. It ended up that were stuck there about 2 hours. For these two hours we just sat in the heat, thinking about how we could have gotten up later and watched as a guy cleaned the sidewalk with a giant palm branch. Walid and his friend showed up later and joked with me that we had missed our train. I fell for it and got defensive. They would continue to pull my leg for our entire trip.
The Train-ride itself wasn’t all that bad. We got to see a lot of poverty and farmland. It was kind of depressing. It was slow though, and we didn’t get down to Aswan for another 3 hours. We arrived unable to find the representative again. I believe the name we finally saw that was supposed to be me was Allan Walters, or Waters. It was pretty far off. Anyways, we walked over to our hotel got set up and then went to see the Philae Temple and the High Dam. The Aswan High Dam, was interesting for me, due to my research and the environmental effects it has reeked on Egypt. The Philae Temple was definitely the best part, as you have to take a boat to the Island Temple and wander about it for a long-time as a guide speaks in a heavy Arabic accent, which I could understand perfectly fine, but apparently other people had serious trouble with. I guess I can count that as one victory for me, being able to understand heavy Arabic accented English. Great.
However, the real fun in aswan came after the temple, as we went on a nile cruise to a Nubian Village for dinner. On the cruise, the guide picked us up some Stellas and we got to hang out with the Australian gang of tourists who were making their eventual way towards Ireland, where they were going to work for a year. Talk about a random life-plan, but one that I really liked. After having some adorable local river kids cling onto our boat and sing us songs, which we eventually gave small fakka too, we stopped in what kind of looked like a disgusting part of the nile, and jumped in. The Nile was really cold. I wasn’t expecting it to be so cold. I mean it wasn’t all that bad, but in Southern Egypt I was expecting the water to be you know, warmer then the Lakes of Idaho. After quickly climbing out, the warm Egyptian wind felt amazing. We then crossed to the other side of the Nile and jumped in again. The Egyptian guides also jumped in with us, stripping down to their boxers and just jumping over board. It was a lot of fun.
We then continued our trek up the nile to the Nubian Village. Although, I question just how authentic the Nubian experience was, as it looked like it was geared for the stereotypical tourist experience, the food and the company was incredible. One of the main attractions was a tiny crocodile. Megan wanted a picture with it, but not to actually touch it, and when she got close, the Egyptian jerked it suddenly to her, making her scream and everyone else laugh. Awesome.
The ride back was relaxing, as it was nighttime and we hung out under the few stars, getting back to our hotel room at around 11, only to have to wake up in about 4 hours.
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