Along the Nile

Location:

The Nile (starting from Aswan and heading north)

After our Abu Simbel visit in the morning, we had some time to shower (our last one for 2.5 days) and pack our stuff for our Felucca adventure up the Nile. For those unfamiliar with feluccas, they are traditional wooden sail boats of Egypt’s Nile.

Ours (pictured) was manned by 3 Nubians who not only sailed the boat, but also cooked for us. There were 16 in our group (including myself) plus 3 crew members on this felucca. Imagine 19 people cramped together on a boat with very limited space.

How you established your personal space: you boarded, then you picked a spot to lie down. Et voilà! That space your body just occupied? That was your personal space for the next 3 days and nights. 8 people on one side of the boat, and 8 on the other (the crew had their own separate space).

This is where/how we spent the next couple of days. As you can imagine, there isn’t all that much to do when you’re stuck on a small sail boat. So we read, listened to music, played cards, and generally tried to kill time. We ate all our meals on the boat and slept in sardine formation.

As for washrooms…well, the rule was to pick an unoccupied bush or tree once we docked. And you had to mind the donkeys, cows, and water buffalo because it’s kind of hard to see them in the fields when you’re trying to go at night. Yep, that’s right – you had to “share” the washrooms with the animals. Sharing is caring, right?

So we sailed from Aswan northwards. We sailed slowly….very slowly. You go at whatever pace the wind decides to take you at (“Insha’Allah” as they say).
The experience was really peaceful – which is such a change from the hecticness of the cities (especially Cairo). Along the way, we saw a lot of animals and village kids swimming in the Nile.

We also had the chance to swim in the Nile when our felucca was docked. The temperature of the Nile is cool, so swimming was very refreshing – and also much needed because of the intense heat during the day.
I guess taking a dip was the equivalent of showering during this part of our tour. Not that it was cleansing or anything – we were not only sharing our washrooms with the animals, but also the Nile.

All in all, the felucca journey was pretty calm. Well, except on our last night. A hilarious and loud game of drunken Charades was played and one person went overboard (as a result of the alcohol, I believe)!
The story is that a Brit woke up a Canadian – who promptly threw him into the water. It was a shock for everyone, especially the people on other feluccas around us – I think we woke them up! We were docked, and the victim could swim, so it was all good. That incident definitely made up for the rest of the slow, lazy, and uneventful days.

Most of my time on the felucca was spent catching up on sleep and reading – two things I never feel I have enough time for; so getting the chance to do that was great. I guess it was more like being pushed into it due to the lack of activities on the boat…but it was still great! Felucca’ing was definitely the most relaxing part of my trip.

For 2 days, we sailed onwards to our destination: Kom Ombo