Tuesday 27/5 Top Deck Day 2 - Aswan + Nubia

Our train arrived in Aswan around 11am. We got onto a coach and drove over to the boat Misr Nile Splendor where we have three nights aboard.

The rooms are doubles, and complete and utter luxury compared to the train we had spent the last 12 hours on. We had lunch straight away. Very nice food, also buffet style (well, it is a tourist cruise ship), and then had some free time. We freshened up, put stuff on charge and did our first load of washing. The sink plug got stuck! It took us till the next day to get it out. We changed and headed out to the dock to board a felluca. Felluca literally means boat in arabic, so its kinda a tortology to say felluca boat. It was a powered one rather than a sail boat because the wind was quite dead that day.

We started our water tour and went throughout the little islands around Aswan. We saw some Nubian structures and temples around, and the shores of the Sahara leading up to the big sand dunes of the desert. Quite cool to say we have now also been to the Sahara.

We docked on a beach where we got off and jumped in for a swim in the nile. Zomg, so cold! You wouldn't think so, being summer and on a desert and all but it was pretty chilly. We dried off and walked over to the camels for our.........yes, our camel ride.

The camel standing up was pretty unexpected. Quite fast, long movements as they unfold their legs. I didn´t realise camels were quite that tall. The ride lasted about 20 minutes or so and took us along the Nile and then through a Nubian village. The camel ride was really lots of fun, and my one even started running a bit for a while, trying to overtake another.

When we got to the end of the ride we were in the middle of a Nubian village.

We headed up into a family gathering house and had a variety of local teas (Egyptians are big on their teas). We had mint, hibiscus which is very common, and one called donkey tea. The reason its apparently called that is because the plant is one that they also feed the donkeys. That one was definitely the best one (with a couple spoons of sugar though!). Rafik gave us an explanation of the Nubian culture and the history of the area. Emma got a henna tattoo on her back.

We got back on the boat and made our way back to the cruise ship. When we got their Emma and I went into Aswan town to go draw some more Egyptian pounds and buy some more sunscreen. That night we had a chilled one because of the early start coming up the next morning.