Monday, December 27, 2010

Egypt - Nile River


Jenny and I were fortunate to be able to go to Egypt recently to see some of the amazing ruins and antiquities dating back some 5000 plus years. The Egyptian Government, with the help of many other governments, have done a beautiful job of restoring some of these priceless work of arts: yes works of art.


So, now let’s take a short trip down the Nile River, considered by most experts as the longest river in the World; however some scientist have recently said that the Amazon is longer. But who is counting or measuring? At over 4200 miles, it is long, but we only cruise about a tenth of the river!


For those of you who have cruised on many of the famous rivers around the world, this cruise is somewhat different. First, in Egypt when your tourist agent says, “Five Stars”, don’t believe him. Although the food was pretty good, the boat was old and not well maintained. The most interesting about the cruise was the docking and departing at each site.


It is estimated that there are somewhere around 230 cruise ships cruising between Luxor and Aswan, which is about 430 miles as the crow flies. Of course much longer via a boat. With this many boats on the Nile and without a sufficient number of marinas to dock, it gets to be quite hectic getting on and off your boat. Instead of each boat tying up at an individual dock, there are as many as six to eight boats tied to each other and one must walk through each boat to get to shore. Interesting!

A view of our boat with a couple other boats tied together!
Another shot of a boat to the left tied to our boat and another one in the back!
I called this shot, "follow the leader". Just a few of the hundreds boats on the way to Aswan.

Life on the Nile!
The temple of Kom Ombo about thiry miles north of Aswan.
One has to be a pretty good Captain to maneuver around so many boats!
Balloons flying over the Nile and the Valley of the Kings, just behind the mountains in the background.
One of the many villages on the east side of the Nile; the west side is mostly desert.

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