Thursday 29/5 Top Deck Day 4 - Edfu + Esna

We woke up late-ish. There was an option to visit Kom Ombo temple during the morning, around about 7am. We decided not to attend =) and rather got some extra hours of sleep. The ship arrived at Edfu. At this point Emmas camera was (we decided) officially dead and deceased. Two years of wear and tear (convention, hint hint) had finally taken its toll on the poor thing. So, we decided to share mine for the time being until she could replace with a new one.

We got up in time to get ready to meet up for visiting Edfu temple. Once off the boat we split into groups of four and got on horse-drawn carriages to take us to the temple. It was a bit of an experience but very, very touristy. Walking and the carriages seemed to be the only way into the entrance area of the temple, and you could see that it was designed for them since there was something like a long parking lot for the horses. Bizarre.

Edfu temple is one of those that you conjure up images of (like Abu Simbu) when you think of Egypt and temples. The structure itself was incredible, being preserved for so long by being covered completely over with sand. The walk through to the entrance had some nice little rooms with drawings, and gave a great panoramic shot of the temple. You could only get the whole of the main large structure in the shot if you took it from that far back (about 300 meters or more away).

There were large hawk statues (since the temple is dedicated to the god Horus) although one was damaged. The other one was in near perfect condition and made for good photo ops.

The courtyard was great, lined with columns. Inside was the real treasure. Since the temple had been so well preserved the colours and quality of the wall drawings were absolutely incredible. You could almost picture the temple being in use.

There were openings in the sealing that let in beams of light. I seized the moment and got an amazing shot of one of them next to a column filled with drawings. It has to be my best picture of the trip so far.

It was getting pretty hot so we made our way back to the entrance after we were pretty satisfied with how much we had seen there. We took the same horse and carriages back through Edfu town, to the ship and got back on board. The ship headed off quite soon after that.

We sailed for a while until we reached Esna lock in the later afternoon. Egypt has a series of dams along the Nile, so water levels between different sides can be different. The ship first went through the old and now unused old lock. As Rafik had mentioned to us a while earlier, there were people down far below trying to sell their stuff to us all on the boat. They would through up their towels with corny Egyptian patterns on them, but of course no one wanted to buy so the people on the boat threw them back down at them.

We got through to the second, and current lock. The descent was really quick, and we dropped about three or so metres. These water locks are really such a brilliant invention and feat of engineering. I dont think a lot of the other people on the boat watching it all really appreciated it.

We continued sailing that night.