River hawkers and a horse carriage ride

Continued from Day 2: Valleys of The Kings and Queens

“HALLO! ESSCUUZZ ME!”
The Nile River is overrun by small boats selling printed fabrics and Egyptian costumes. The cruise ship has slowed down since it is reaching the Esna Lock where it must queue up to cross the lock. This is slated to happen at around 3am. Some people are going to get up at 3am to witness this. I intend to sleep right through the whole thing. As it turns out, there is some delay and the ship only gets to cross the lock at around 9am.

These small boats latch themselves onto the cruise ship, no doubt with help from cruise staff, and get pulled alongside the ship. Soon though, the cruise ship slows down to a halt and more small boats appear, hollering “Hallo! Esscuuzz me!” to passengers on the sundeck. They toss the packets of fabrics up to the sundeck with astonishing precision. The passengers toss them back if they don’t like what they see.

However, many end up in the Nile since we are not accustomed to tossing stuff 4 storys (3 floors cabin plus the sundeck) overboard. But the hawkers do not really try to salvage those that land out of reach – they just let the wares float away. I will include a video of this as soon as I figure out how to do it.

DAY 3: HORSE CARRIAGE RIDE TO HORUS TEMPLE

We take the horse-drawn carriage to Horus Temple (also known as Edfu Temple) which is quite a nice experience. Edfu has some very nice street scenes and I managed to capture some even though it is hard to get a sharp image on the move. What would be nicer though is that the carriage drive through the side roads so we can see the everyday life of countryside Egyptians.

Horus Temple is impressive with a lot of intact hieroglyphics and carvings. This temple has also been used as a hideout for early Christians to avoid persecution by the Romans. Their coptic crosses can be seen on the walls. They are also responsible for defacing a large number of wall carvings. This place can easily be used for the next Indiana Jones movie.

We only get to see one place today because of the unforseen delay at the Esna Lock. The ship didn’t get to cross over till late morning and so we only arrive at Edfu after lunch.