Day 9 - Abu Simbel, Aswan, Sun Boat IV - Friday, November 25

We got a 4am wake-up call, and left for the airport at 5am. We were given breakfast boxes which we ate on the way. We flew the hour and a half to Aswan, waited on board for a half hour, and then flew another half hour to Abu Simbel. We loaded onto the van and drove to Abu Simbel, the temples of Ramses II and Nefertari. These temples were moved from 65m down below where they would have been flooded by Lake Nasar. They are incredibly huge and amazing. Even my photos won't do them justice. Lake Nasar was beautiful and cormorants, swallows, doves, and raptors were flying about. Inside the Ramses temple was a giant penis, unfinished wall in a chamber, but we couldn't take photos inside. We spent about an hour and 15 minutes here before flying the half hour back to Aswan.

In Aswan on the van to the boat, we passed truck loads of camels from Sudan being taken to a quarantine station. When we crossed over the Nile, we saw the first cataracts of the Nile in Egypt from the low Aswan Dam, saw the Temple of Phillae, and an old Muslim cemetery. We stopped at an old stone quarry to see the unfinished obelisk which cracked before it could be removed. We climbed to the top to see it.

We boarded the Sun Boat IV, which is one of the nicest boats cruising the Nile. It holds 80 people, but there were just our group and another group of a British couple, and two 20-something guys, one of which was the son of the Egyptian ambassador. So we basically had the ship to ourselves. We were upgraded from the lowest deck to a deck above with floor to ceiling windows because the ship was so empty. We were served karkady (hibiscus tea) on our arrival - what a treat since I love this stuff.

We went to our cabin which was lovely but small as on most cruise ships. The bathroom was tiny, but I was intrigued by the wood slat flooring which seemed to drain water from the shower through the slats. We freshened up and then went to lunch. We had a cheese and tomato salad, tomato soup, and a coconut/date cake. After lunch we went up to the sun deck (top deck) where there was a pool, lovely lounge chairs with awnings over the groupings. We could see an Arabian lighthouse on the west bank, feluccas on the river, minarets, and listened to the call to prayers. It was awesome!

We went back to the room, cleaned up, and got ready for the captain's cocktail hour, compliments of the boat manager, Samir. I had Stella, a lovely Egyptian beer. They had mini pizzas, fried mashed potato balls, and canapés. They gave the safety briefing and introduced the main supervisors on the boat. Then it was on to dinner. I had smoked Norwegian salmon with sour cream and capers, green and red pepper cream soup, pan fried hamour (which is a Red Sea grouper and unbelievably good!) layered on herbed rice and sauteed Chinese cabbage served with oyster sauce. For dessert we had brandy snap (a cookie) with a trio of ice cream and strawberry sauce.

Bill and I went back on deck so he could have his cigar, and we watched the lights on the Nile and the west bank. There seemed to be some kind of a wedding celebration going on with all kinds of vehicles driving around honking hours. Then we went to bed.