i'm standing on the rough rooftop of the Nile Hotel in Aswan and i can hear the call to prayer from three different directions in three different voices. i can spot two of the mosques from where i'm standing - what sounds like a female voice is coming from behind me somewhere. Louise and i are on the fourth floor of the hotel, the stairwell leads straight up from there into the sunlight glinting off the river. the view from the balcony of our room is spectacular. the view from the rooftop is even more so - the river to the west, the crest of a desert ridge in the distance spotted with little domed buildings of unknown purpose. river boats are pootling up and down the Nile while horse-and-buggies ply the tourist trade on the road. i can hear the conversations of the driver's horns from 6 storeys up and on the whole it sounds friendly as drivers honk to say they're coming out into traffic, or that they need to get by please, or please, merge ahead of me. pedestrians make their way across the street with an air of confidence. i've seen 3 lanes of drivers pull to a stop while men assist their wives across the road. it looks daunting, but you get in the swing, it seems. i've managed to venture across a few roads now and it helps to do as Soobie says and keep an Egyptian to my left (they're French-side on the roads here) if at all possible. they know what's going on - me, i'm just guessing.
we pulled into the Aswan Train Station at around 9:15AM, 13 hours and 925km after leaving Cairo. Soobie woke me at somewhere around 7 with a breakfast box. i think i'd been asleep for around 8 hours, but with my mobile phone turned off and in my shoulder bag i had no real idea. i remember waking up a couple of times through the night, pulling the tshirt off my face and looking out the window to see darkness, whereupon i shifted position and went back to sleep again. it wasn't until we were in the hotel at Aswan and drying off from the shower that i started to feel vaguely together. i chowed through the leftovers from the day before's breakfast (i could have sworn i'd seen that bread roll before...) - croissant, stale bread, a couple of slices of plastic cheese, some natural yoghurt and, i shit you not, Fig Jam. i took one look at that and lost it laughing, the entire carriage wanting to know what i was making such a fuss over. how was it? "Fuck It's Good, Just Ask Me" - it's amazing no one hit me.
i wanted coffee. i craved coffee. i took one look at the coffee being served and said no. i got a good smell too - Soobie knocked over his full mug of it and the look on his face what you'd expect if you'd told him his mother'd died. he REALLY needed that coffee, and Derek was good enough to go and get him a fresh one. a happier man i've not seen in so long it warmed my heart. for the next hour and a half i sat and vaguely watched out the window as the scenery rolled by - small children playing in the street, farmers tending to fields of wheat with the river a hundred or so metres to one side and the desert to the other, 3 donkey-drawn carts loaded with gas-cylinders waiting at a level crossing for the train to pass, pyres burning yesterday's rubbish. the fertile land surrounding the Nile is thin in many parts - at one point the tracks seemed to act as the terminator between life and death with fields stretching a stone's throw to the bank of the river on the right and nothing but rocky sand to the left. on one side it's lush and green, the other: desolate.
out of the train station, on a 5 minute bus ride and into the hotel where we get our briefing, keys, and a couple of hours to sort ourselves out before lunch and today's tour. i waste my time showering, changing, wiping the worst of the dust off my clothes and kit then blogging. i'd meant to on the train but couldn't get my mind in gear. at one point Mike wandered into our room to say g'day and i didn't notice him for a full five minutes - lying on my bed, Trapt in my ears, a white screen full of words in front of me while the cursor worked its way across the page. i never did get my coffee - if i don't get one tomorrow i'll kill someone and drink their blood in exchange.
the Nile Hotel sits along the river facing the cruise boats that sit stately in their docks, flanked by an Exchange with decent rates and a duty-free shop with prices in US$, catering to tourists. remember, this is a Muslem country, so no passports, no service. is clean and tidy, nondescript apart from the splashings of marble and rose-granite. in Oz or the UK marble staircases and urinal dividers would be ostentatious. here they're just matter-of-fact. this country has them in spades so they throw it around like lino. the lift's decided not to work when we arrive so i wind up carrying Louise's 20kg bag up 6 flights of stairs. they HAD to give us the room on the top fucking floor...
more felafel sandwiches down my throat, skin raw from a blistering-hot and much needed shower and a small group of us are out the door to check out the Aswan High Dam and the Temple of Isis on Filay Island. Aswan High Dam was build 40-odd years after the Old Dam, commencing in 1960 and finishing in 1971. President Nasser - the first democratically elected President of the country after the British finally got around to fucking off - embarked on an orgy of nation-building from the moment his arse hit the chair. first he nationalised the Suez Canal - Egypt's single highest source of foreign income - and leveraged that to build the dam which now provides around 10% of the country's power needs through its hydro-electric turbines. pissed off at the British and Americans who'd been happily raping the country through corporate control of the Canal, Nasser opened ties with the Soviets and floated a long-term loan from an Estonian Bank. Egypt was modernised overnight - villages and cities which had lived in darkess now had light, the annual floods ceased with the now-regulated waterflow, roads were built linking towns and cities, the people gained the chance to start to catch up with the western world and the Russians got a chance to piss off the yanks and the Brits without a shot being fired in anger or protest. you get the impression that the Egyptians were happy enough with both sides of the equation - after thousands of years of being conquered and walked over by the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, christians, French, British and now american-backed corporations, getting one in for themselves must have felt as good as the scrawny nerd who finally gets one over on the bully... and likes it. give them another 10-20 years and the Nile will be flanked by wind turbines. this is a nation on the fast-track.
to the south of the dam there is Lake Nasser - full of crocodiles. north runs the Nile which is crocodile-free, i've been assured (any that try to get north get chumped by the turbines). when we arrive my camera decides that now is the time to crap out. my indescretions in the duststorm yesterday have taken their toll - it sounds like it's all through the small plastic cogs and gears that run the zoom and focus mechanisms. i finally manage to get it to close through gentle prodding and blowing, and as we drive off it decides that it's happy again. i'm pissed off for all of 10 minutes - i'm going to have to be careful. we're on the 3rd day of a 3 week trip here and if i don't get to go snap-happy with the photos i'm going to be madder than a cut snake in a vinegar factory.
there's really not a lot to see at the Aswan High Dam - enough limestone and concrete and sand to build another pyramid and a collosal concrete monument built to resemble a Lotus flower which commemorates the alliance and friendship between Egypt and the USSR standing proud and beige as the desert sand all around. it's an impressive piece of engineering. Louise, Mike and i sit around afterwards talking about more impressive dams - Hoover in the states, the 3 Gorges in China... but Aswan's the symbol of the little country that could and i'm really glad i got to stand on it and look around, even if just for 20 minutes.
the bus drops us off 20 minutes later at a stone jetty surrounded by motor boats. Soobie sorts out the details as he always does and we're off to Filay Island and the Temple of Isis, Mike looking a little pale and warning of motion- and sea-sickness. the Temple of Isis is one of the many which were saved from the creation of Lake Nasser by the Egyptian Government and UNESCO (whenever Soobie mentions speaks of them he does it with a reverent, near-awed tone), like the more-famous Abu Simbel which we're off to see tomorrow. in thanks to some of the countries who helped with the recovery and restorations some of the smaller temples were crated off and gifted to countries such as Belgium, Switzerland and the USA. it's magnificent - every available surface has been carved with artwork and inscriptions, inside and out. the fact that it was half-submerged when they saved it makes it even more impressive. we're flying around the place taking photo after photo of ourselves, each other, everything, preserving what our fragile memories can't even begin to hold.
standing in the Aswan Markets i can hear the call to prayer loud and clear, singing in Arabic from the green-lit mosque spire above my head. Louise and i are wandering in the hour allotted, playing with the shopkeeps, scoping out the souveniers and i have to admit that she's having a much better time of it than i am. she's much better at ignoring people than i am, and she's enjoying the haggle. the locals are constantly walking up to you, standing in your way forcing you to walk around and fend them off with a raised hand. me, i'm keeping their hands in view which is part of why my leading hand is up, blocking theirs, watching the other from my peripheral. we bolt for the meeting point with a couple of minutes to spare, a couple of carved basalt statues (a cat for her, Anubis-as-Jackal for me) and a handfull of ceramic scarabs (hers) in my shoulder bag. tonight we're on another litte ferry over to a small island where we're enjoying a Nubian dinner - Nile Perch, chicken or beef cooked in a tomato, sesame seed and onion sause in a clay pot (like a tagine, but not quite). the food's excellent - hearty, strongly spiced (Aswan is famous for its spices, Soobie tells us) and rich. food finished, the drummers come out, dancing, playing, fooling around. half of the restaurant is dragged up to form a snaking conga-line and we're having an absolute fucking ball, laughing like drains and mugging for any camera that might point our way. back in our seats and a big Nubian grabs a few of the croud for pantomime. he's yelling phrases at his victims, making them reply in kind and half of them can't speak for the laughter. we skidaddle back to the east bank for an early night. we're waking up at 2:30AM tonight for a 3:15AM departure so that we can get in the Tourist Police convoy headed for Abu Simbel - 280km and 3 hours drive away by bus. we still need to pack up and be prepared for a big day tomorrow and somehow i know that despite the serious lack of rest i'm about to have, sleep's going to be a long time coming...
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