The Land of no Top Floors, Fri, 04 Mar 2022 | written by Simon
Jemma and Simon at a City, Museum, River, Ruins/Excavation in Africa, Egypt

Finally! Freedom to decide what we do when and just take it a bit more easy. We checked out of the boat in the morning, left our luggage with the staff, and headed off with Christina and Marco to town.

  • You won’t buy anything on the market on a Friday morning, but by the afternoon everything is open.
  • You can get a felucca for a quarter of the price asked by the travel agents.
  • The felucca guys were really nice, and it turns out that we could have taken a felucca all the way to Edfu or maybe even Luxor. Sounds pretty amazing, if we were to do this again, I’d much rather do it on a felucca than the cruise ship.
  • The botanic garden is beautiful, and we have two new favourite plants: the bombox tree, and the johannamia bush.
  • It’s generally great sailing between the islands – Aswan is really on a beautiful part of the Nile!
  • Packed lunch on the boat rocks – Jemma says it was her favourite part of the day. It really encapsulates the change of pace and scenery.

We dropped our comrades off at the ship and sailed to the Elephantine Island. We walked through the Nubian village there, bought a couple gorgeous scarves and ended in the Aswan Museum, which is mostly an excavation site. Back on the mainland, we checked out the Nubian Museum, which was pretty big and really impressive, and the Coptic Cathedral which is still being built. On the way back, the Souk again, this time open!

  • Oddly enough, there is really nothing we particularly like in the markets. The clothes are really quite boring for both men and women, the ones that are decorated tend to be in poor synthetic fabrics, and the decorations are a bit all over the place. Jemma didn’t even try anything on. Similarly, the jewellery is just not our style.
  • The vendors seem to have gotten the memo that tourists don’t like to be hassled. So they invite you to the shop saying it’s a ‘no hassle shop’. And the moment you take anything in your hand, they start telling you they have it in different colours and sizes, and also if you liked this one then you have to check that one as well! But that’s not hassling, it’s informing 😀
  • The market is massive here! Really long, but it’s all just more of the same. There really isn’t that much variety.

In the evening, we docked in our Nubian guesthouse on the West Bank and are amazed by how wonderful it is. It’s just on the river, so it’s a clear view of Aswan – though I’m not sure if it’s good, since all you see is massive hotels and cruise ships, and the beeping noise really carries. But the hostel is the complete opposite of that – little, quaint, colourful, nice lights, just an all-round lovely space that just makes you want to sit and relax. Our room is also super cute, with a little Nubian dome and all. Jemma has really done a great job planning this trip!