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A few shots from our hotel. This one is down into the entryway looking at the Nubian Museum. We spent an hour there looking a Nubian art and history, but no cameras were allowed in the museum. For the record, what was Nubia is now underwater as Lake Nasser since the dam was completed.
A shot toward the cemetary.
Yes, it is nice on the hotel patio, but once you get a hundred yards from the irrigated section, it's nothing but desert again.
The back side of the hotel from the patio by the pool.
Here we visit a pharaonic-age granite quarry that has been preserved as a historic site.
This would have been the largest obelisk ever, except they discovered a flaw trying to dig it out.
Philae again, but during the daylight hours.
It's on an island, so you have to take a shuttle boat out to the temple. Here is Atef pondering deeply what he is going to say about Philae.
With a hearty cry of "Vacation!" (our code word), we follow Atef and his Ra-sun (actually an Ikea potted plant base) to the next stop.
Of course, when the Christians got here and found out that these figures represented "gods", they decided to chisel them all unrecognizable.
Don't tell the Christians that this is Horus, the falcon god.
Trying to keep some perspective on the size of everything.
It keeps going deeper and deeper.
Did I mention that is was hot and stifling inside these rooms in the daytime?
The view from Philae back to the old dam.
A little critter that we found near the snack bar.
After the temple, we went to a perfume factory. In the lobby, they are demonstrating blowing glass for the bottles.
Here is a sample cart with all of the different fragrances. These are pure essences, not diluted into perfume with alcohol.
See? They don't burn. They are very pure.
We arrive at the Kon-Tiki for our Nile river cruise. (Hans, for your sake we didn't take a picture of all the steps we had to walk down to get to the dock.)
After we drop off the luggage, we are supposed to go out for a
felucca
ride.
A shot back at the ship from the felucca.
Some temples carved into the hills.
This enterprising young man paddled out on three sheets of styrofoam lashed together, and using two pieces of scrounged wood as paddles, to sing to us until we would give him money to go away.
More shots of the bank.
These gentlemen pulled up alongside the boat to offer us musical instruments, scarves, and other trinkets. That was one of the themes of the trip: everyone here has an angle. Even the two pilots of the felucca put out jewelry and trinkets that were made by their wives and daughters.
In the foreground is
Prince Aga Khan
's residence. (No, not Aly Khan, his son, who was married to Rita Hayworth.) The mosque in the back is where he was buried.
The wind died down to nothing, and we had to be towed back to the dock. How did they ever conduct these tours before cell phones?
As we are towed back, we see signs of civilization.
That evening, we go to an open-air market. Here we are buying spices.