An Afternoon in Aswan

July 21-22

We had initially intended to leave Alexandria 2 days earlier, but the exodus of Egyptians back to their families for Ramadan prevented that from happening.

We had booked 2 first-class tickets from Alexandria to Aswan, Egypt's southernmost major city. Things got off to a bad start when our train failed to arrive until 2 hours after it's scheduled departure. Thankfully, an Egyptian-Canadian professor from UBC helped us figure out when our train had finally arrived and we boarded our train for the 18-19 hour journey.

My seat was rather pleasant despite the cabin being kept at a frigid 15 degrees Celsius: I assume to maintain the train and passengers' rancid odours at a manageable intensity. I mean, come on, this is first class!

I was rather pleased that for the entirety of the trip, I was able to doze in and out of sleep, making this tedious journey that much more tolerable.

Josh on the other hand was not so fortunate. His seat was next to a door that was opened and closed at least 5 times per minute. He had to listen to a group of teenage stowaways sing and clap for hours deliberately trying to infuriate a man trying to calm his infant daughter, sitting next to him. This would not be so terrible except for the human excrement and urine oozing from the vent from the bathroom car in front of ours, requiring Josh to actively keep his feet up to avoid his shoes stewing in the septic carpet at his feet. Keep in mind he did this for 12 hours!

Ah Egyptian first class, the envy of the Middle East!

Needless to say, we (mostly Josh) were happy to get off of that infernal train. Upon walking down the platform, we saw our Australian friend, Onur, stepping off the same train. He spoke of a magical hotel with a rooftop pool and we decided to check it out with him.

When we arrived with eager grins, they misleadingly assured us that they did in fact have a pool, just that it currently didn't have any water in it. Since we were already far enough from the other hotels, we decided to stay there with that empty pool full of broken dreams.

That evening we did a sunset fellucia ride and enjoyed the tranquility of the Nile and the illuminated, sloping dunes of this ancient waterway's west bank.

We then woke up at 2:45 (that same night) to board yet another bus to drive close to 300km to view Ramses II's masterpiece: the temple complex of Abu Simbel. We were given a mere hour-and-a-half to explore the temple's namesake and the accompanying temple of Hathor, before boarding that same bus for the return 300km trek to Aswan.

To add insult to injury, a mere 2 hours after our arrival in Aswan, we boarded a 3-hour train ride to Luxor. Thankfully, after that final leg, we could settle into our hotel beds and enjoy some well-deserved, reasonably air-conditioned, horizontal sleep, without the fear of a cesspool forming at our feet.

Now that was some first-class sleep!