Aswan to Abu Simbel--and Back

(Note: we're off on a Nile cruise now. Be ready for a possible four-day lapse in communications. Keep checking in. Bear with me, too, on the hastty writing and the lack of editing--hence probably typos. Thanks...PAL)

Up early this morning for a day trip down to Abu Simbel, then back to Aswan in the evening to join the boat, where we’ll be for four nights. Again, some uncertainty about Internet access.

A delightful late afternoon-evening trip yesterday, leaving by boat up the Nile to a group of Nubian villages. The Nubians were relocated to this area when the dam flooded their villages south of Aswan, so they bear some resemblance to the American Indian reservations. But the comparison doesn’t carry through very far, as we discovered shortly after disembarking and boarding the four pick-up trucks that were to transport us through the villages. On the face of it, there’s a great deal of poverty and subsistence living. But we were fortunately to discover the more cheerful underlying reality. These people, though deprived of their homelands, proved remarkably outgoing and welcoming to visitors.

Soon after leaving the boat, we spotted out first camels! Quite a thrill, to those of us who have seen them only in zoos! In this area, they are regular working animals, carrying loads of alfalfa and other greenery, loping slowly down the roadside, or galloping off away into the distance. At least one, we noted, we spooked by the pickup trucks, and started to give trouble to its rider. Then there were donkeys, horses, cattle …

And people. Such great, friendly people, Bush, all along the road and all through the villlages. Greeting us with big smiles and shouts of “Allah!” (or maybe it was just “Hello!” Toothless old men and tiny children—the latter galloping along behind us an seizing on to the back of the pickups, if we slowed enough, to hitch a ride. We stopped, apparently pretty much at random, in the middle of one ot the villages, and Fadel hopped out to chat with some of the villagers, eventually inviting us in because he wanted us to see something of the simple architecture of the Nubian homes.
Given that we had just invited ourselves in, all twenty-five plus of us, we got an extraordinary welcome. Four sisters, I’d guess at their ages between twelve and twenty, beautiful faces, delighted to have us visit and show us their home. Not simple girls, either. The two older sisters were both in college, one studying French literature, the other, social services. But the simplest of possible homes: a single large sand courtyard, neatly swept and not a piece of trash in sight—gthe kind of floor they say you could eat off. Fadel explains that this is their living room, and that the Nubians are known for their fastidiousness, despite the simplicity of their envirnonment. Bedrooms, off to each side, had the sparsest of furniture: two or three iron bedsteads with minimal coverings, a chair or two, a chest of drawers. A laundry room. A kitchen. The girls gladly posed for pictures, without the usual request for bakseesh, and said goodbye in French and English, a little shy, but at the same time without any lack of sense of confidence in who they are.

Back on the trucks, we trundled through more villages and pulled up finally in a bare, sandy square to disembark and make our way through the side streets to the house where we were to dine. Again, greeted with huge courtesy and friendliness by our hosts, who provided a wonderful feast of chicken, rice, okra, beans, and a mixed vegetable casserole, all at long tables laid out for us in their courtyard. The men stopped by with a few words of greeting, then went off to their prayers (we glimpsed them later through the open window of an area that seemed reserved for men. The womenfolk did the work, having cooked, and now serving, all the while tending to the children who were running more or less wild around the courtyard—all about five years old, I’d guess, spunky and not in the least impressed by their Western visitors. One little boy had a toy machine pistol, which he brandished menacingly not at us, but at his sisters. A truly joyful occasion, where we felt most warmly welcome and appreciated.

As an aside, Bush, I need to add that we were pretty friendly, too. I do think that Americans, as a rule, are generous and outgoing people, anxious to be liked, and always ready to like others. We had the best time waving from the trucks, shouting back the greetings as warmly as they reached us. It was, as they say, a gas.
Back home by nine-ish, ready for bed to prepare for an early morning departure.

Finished most of our packing, so that we’d be less hassled in the morning.

Thursday, March 31, 2005 (I think—I’ve lost track of time)

Up shortly before six, and out for a pleasant breakfast on the terrace. Then boarded our bus and headed out to the Aswan airport to catch a place down to Abu Simbel. It’s a bit of a discipline to maintain a semblance of equanimity at any airport these days, and Aswan was no exception. Security—everything had to be scanned, twice. And delays. This one apparently due to air force exercises: they share the airport to protect the dam! Fadel tipped us off to find seats on the port side of the plane, to enjoy the better view, so we had a great view of the huge reaches of Lake Nasser and its surroundings: blue-green water, black rocks scattered everywhere, and rising to some height, in some places forming mesa-like plateaus’ and of course, the golden sand.

A good view, as Fadel promised, of the Abu Simbel monuments on our descent. Still even that left us unprepared for the grandeur and the splendor of these massive, serene monuments. Again, this is not the place for me to try to recall every detail of Fadel’s fascinating explanations. Guide books will do that far better than I. And to tell the truth, it’s hard to find words adequate to the experience to these temples. You see them in the art and archietcture books about ancient Egypt, but to see them is to experience and overwhelming awe for the magnitude of man’s ambitions and abilities, as well as his dreadful capacity for destruction.

The carvings, the hieroglyphs, the monumental sculptures, these are quite simply beautiful beyond imagination. What you get in their proximity, of course, that you don’t get in the pictures, is the human interaction with his natural environs to create, by hand, the image of his own vision of the world and where he fits in it. It’s a visceral thing, felt more than seen, understood in the gut more deeply than through explanations—though these, of course, add immeasurably to the experience: the more we understand, the more fully we’re capable of experiencing
I wondered, too, as I’m sure many have, how it would seem to these ancients to see the streams of moderns tramping through their temples, mouths agape and cameras at the ready.

Anyway, back to the airport a couple of short hours later, to go through more security and board the flight back to Aswan. Arrived to board the ship which will transport us down the Nile (north, that it) in time to check out our cabin (quite luxurious and surprisingly roomy) before a buffet lunch in the dining room. This spread was more to our American taste that the Nubian food we have been sampling, and I shared in the general gluttonous comsumption.

After lunch we were left with a bare half hour to get ourselves back together. I’ll take a breather at this point, and catch up with the afternoon later.