Egypt - p.5 - Cruising to Gebel Silsila

Today is the day after Easter, and although it is supposed to be a Coptic holiday, Muslims celebrate, too.
These boys are playing in the river. They were using empty plastic pop bottles as water wings.

These people are having a picnic by the banana field.  Everyone obviously knows how to enjoy a holiday.

Another favorite holiday activity is boating.
Curiously, they use oars that resemble sticks, with no wide part at the ends.

These boys wanted to surf in the floattel's wake, but they got dangerously close to the fast-moving ship.
The Captain & crew would yell at boys who got too close.  In Egypt, it is as if everyone lives in the same village.
Everyone looks out for everyone else.

Feluccas in the river.  The Nile is not a very wide river, as you can see here.
We tied up here for a while, waiting for a good afternoon wind to use the sails.

Notice a dark rectangle, right of center.  That is a Bedouin tent. We went over there and had the best coffee ever!  They took raw coffee beans, roasted them over the fire, ground them with mortar and pestle, boiled them in a small long-handled pot, and filtered it through shredded palm thatch.  While we enjoyed the coffee, the crew were busy making & receiving cell phone calls.  It seemed incongruous to be hearing cell phones in a Bedouin tent.

Gaetan and I took a swim in the Nile.  The water was cool and refreshing, but the current was stronger than I expected, particularly since I had put shorts & a shirt over my swimsuit as Egyptian women do when they swim.

Three ways to know this photo was taken in Egypt: (1) rebar on rooftops, (2) satellite dishes and (3) donkeys.

Houseboat.

This is where we tied up for the night, just outside the entrance to Gebel Silsila, the sandstone quarries.
The bedrock changes from limestone to harder sandstone here.  In the morning, we toured the quarries.


Ancient Egyptians once believed the Nile originated here; it is approximately where the kingdom of Nubia began.

Blocks to build temples and monuments were quarried here and floated downstream to Edfu, Esna and Luxor.


I'm not sure our guide understood the primal connection we - as mineral people - felt to these quarries.

But our guide was patient and allowed us to play with rocks for a while.

There were grottos in the walls, ...

...which gave Gaetan all the excuse he needed to start climbing.

He made it to the top in no time.

Then back down.

This grotto shows a little of the decoration inside.

Trumpet player in the middle, and some dancers.  Elsewhere I saw flutes & harps.

Mahmdou told me to wash my hands after touching this odd plant.

Another view of the toxic plant,

Walking back to the Neferu-Ra...

... our beautiful boat ...

...where we had the most amazing lunch of vegetable-stuffed, fresh Nile lattice fish.
I meant to take the photo before we ate, but kind of forgot about that when Mahmdou placed it on the table.

Then as we sailed away from the quarries, we saw a rock (middle of photo) that looked exactly like a tank.

Even in close-up, it looks like a tank.

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