The Nile Cruise – Day 1

The Oasis Giza Hotel grounds

My first day in d’nile involved an early start (5:30am) to be ready for collection at 6:30am to head to Cairo airport for my transfer to Luxor. All of that was achieved with success. It was sad saying goodbye to Ray. He has been such an easy friend and guide and made my stay in Cairo and Alexandria very enjoyable.

The flight to Luxor went without a hitch. Egyptian airports do not use jetways (it seems) and so one is transported by bus from the terminal to the plane standing in a row of planes on an apron to the taxiways. Otherwise, the flight was like any other plane flight I’ve had.
I opted for a window seat to allow me to look out over Egypt as I flew. My impression from that: it’s a desert! Seriously, the landscape is barren, although there are many intricate former river beds cut into the land. Then, eventually, you come close to the Nile and there is a strong band of vibrant green and evidence of settlement, eventually turning into the city of Luxor. The strip of farming land along the edge of the Nile looks just like any farmland anywhere in the world; regular sections of green planting interspersed with roads and occasional buildings.

My arrival at Luxor was smooth except for the absence of my transfer contact. I managed to collect my bag and exit the airport without contact. I decided that I ought to ring Ray, as I expected that I’d receive the same service that he provided. He was very apologetic and said he would ring the local office. I was the last remaining person at the airport by the time I was met by Michael, one of Emeco’s local people. He was very apologetic. It was not problem, really, but only because I knew that Ray would reach out and fix my problems for me.

First look at the boat

View across the Nile from the boat

The car trip to the river boat was uneventful. The traffic conditions in Luxor are significantly less problematic than those in Cairo or Alex. I might even dare to drive in Luxor. I arrived at the boat in good time and was received warmly. I am probably a bit of a ‘problem’ for the crew as I don’t fit neatly into any of the cruise tours and I’m travelling as a single. But that doesn’t dampen their politeness and attentiveness.

My cabin is comfortable and clean, with its own bathroom. The whole space is about the same as my bedroom and bathroom. It’s all quite nice, actually. I drop my stuff, change into shorts and a t-shirt and head for the top deck (bar/lounge/poop deck) to observe the Nile and write up my notes from my days in Cairo. I get to observe some of the other passengers; too much of some of them! There are two women sunbathing (it’s bright sunny weather in the high 20s). One is probably my age, the other possibly her daughter. Neither of them should be seen outside a dressing room in a bikini, but here they are baking their “puffy, white, purulent flesh” (to quite Monty Python). It is genuinely NOT a highlight of the tour to date. The rest of the passengers scattered around chatting appear to mostly be English.

By this time it’s about 11am and I’ve not eaten since 6am, so I am aching from a lack of food. There is nothing on offer except some chips and a chocolate bar bought from the on-board tat shop. So that has to do. I visit the dining room (second deck, same as my cabin) at lunch time and am shown to my table. It goes without saying that I am placed at a table on my own. It is adjacent to a table of four and we chat a little.

The afternoon is taken up with a tour of Kanark and Luxor temples. These are extraordinary locations. It is genuinely difficult to describe Kanark temple, for example. It’s huge, has been built in stages over thousands of years, and is in various stages of ruin. For all that, the colonnade area is completely breathtaking. The pillars are awe-inspiring and I am transported by a remembered vision of the scene in the Halls of Moria in Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers movie. I can clearly hear Boromir (Sean Bean) saying: "They have a cave troll!" It is a wonderful place and I struggle to take pictures that will capture the sense of it. Our guide, Basim, provides fascinating insights into the history of the place and the meaning of the various monuments, or how monuments were erected. Hatsuhtep’s Obelisk is an eye-watering display of engineering skill, apparently achieved by filling a large basin with sand, erecting the obelisk vertically in the sand, and then letting the sand run out from under the erect stone. Some of my tour friends are sceptical that it would work: “what about those last grains of sand?” I’m content that nearly 1000 tons of stone would deal easily with the last few grains of sand. Again, it is hard to capture such a large, complex monument in photos, but here are a taste.

We are left to look around the temple on our own, a technique that I’ve since discovered that Basim employs regularly. That suits me and I wander around trying to capture the key things I see in the place in pictures as well as in memories.

Basim, guiding

Ramses II

From Karnark temple, we travel in the bus into Luxor city proper and visit the Luxor Temple. By this time, the light is failing as sunset approaches. Consequently, the monument is lit by flood lights. That is fine for viewing with the naked eye, but seriously compromises photography, particularly with my skill level and a mobile phone camera (as good as the camera is in the Nokia Lumia 800). I have already decided that I would by one of the tourist books to ensure I had ‘proper pictures’ of these amazing sights. Nonetheless, I snap a lot of pictures to try to capture what I’m seeing.

We were driven back to the boat after the tours of the temples. I had a couple of drinks with my new friends from the tour. It turns out that there’s a couple on the boat (Mike and Carol, from Devon) who are also celebrating their 50ths on the boat (although their birthdays are 22 and 23 Nov). They can’t be in d’nile on their birthdays as their daughter graduates from Coventry University on 21 November!

Dinner is pleasant, although served later than I’d like. The food on the boat is routinely quite good. We have been told during the day that we have a 7am start to head to the Valley of the Kings. By the time I’ve finished dinner and then fought with the internet connection to upload earlier blog entries, it’s 10:30 before I’m doing the “go to bed” thing. For a guy on holiday, I seem to be having a very busy time of it!