Cairo - Aswan - Luxor, Egypt: Sails Woven of Patience

So some of us have gone from loving to hating and back again of this country. Travelling in Egypt certainly has its ups and downs.

Firstly, it is hot here, and we mean HOT. Always over 40C in the days, more like 45C (over 110F) down in Aswan. That kind of heat doesn't make you want to do anything, and here we are trudging through the desert, fighting off pimping touts, hat salesmen, baksheesh grubbing locals, hords of tourists, and just about anyone else that thinks they can make a buck off of us.

And don't get someone started on that. EVERYTHING is open to haggling. And since we can't understand, nor even begin to read Arabic, we can't even get a fair start. Bottle of water, well we have seen people pay up to 10 pounds for a bottle. They charge locals 1.5opounds. They say even the locals have to haggle, but for us it is constant. Everything is a minimum of double the price for us. Just to use internet today, we asked one place, they said 10pounds, we turned to go and the price dropped to 5. Guess they just have to try.

But it gets hard, the heat, the hassle. YES TRAVELLING IS TOUGH. But the touts here aren't just hiking the prices, you can't walk anywhere without someone asking you where you are from or trying to sell you something. And when we tell them Canada, let us tell you, we have heard "CANADA DRY" about 10billion times now! The souqs and bazaars are a lesson in patience, as there are hundreds of shops and every shop owner comes into the street, stands in your way and says somethign to you, from EXCUSE ME, to DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THIS IS, to WHAT IS THIS, to WHERE ARE YOU FROM? or how about HOW MANY CAMELS? or LUCKY MAN or the kissy whistling noises and on and on and on.

Oh and the little kids. Different culture, diferent people. Justine has had her boob accidentally touched by little kids a few times and they just don't take No Thank you for an answer.

And lets not even start with the flies that just won't stop dive bombing into our mouths and eyes.

Ahhh but all is not bad. Even though people can get downright rude and mean when you don't go with them or look in their shop, there are some wonderful moments amid the chaos. Smiling children saying hello, or the offer for tea amidst the haggling are just some of the few. Many people stop you to hassle you, but many also stop you to tell you that you are Welcome in their Country, and that can feel nice. We don't do enough of that in Canada. And even though, many of them still make a buck off of us, there are always people willing to help you out or let you know what something is. And, well, we suppose you can't blame them for trying to hike prices up, there are a lot of well-to-do package tourists (really hardly any backpackers) and, 1 CAD = 5.35 Pounds. Lets, put that in more of a perspective, we are paying 25pounds a night at our hostel tonight. We bought the sweetest, juiciest watermelon today, fresh off the wagon for a rather steep tourist price of 4 pounds. Life can be a constant haggle here, but do as the locals do, sip some piping hot tea, laugh it off and put it past you.

So hassle aside we have travelled to 40km from the border of Sudan and taken in some of Egypts greatest monuments. The last couple of days we have taken in some of the momuments which were disassembled, packed up and moved to higher ground when Egypt decided to dam up the Nile River. Can't say some of us think highly of that move, even though it allowed much more of the land to become fertile, and has helped support the population. Guess it has something to do with the fact that one of the greatest civilisations of all times lived for thousands of years perfectly fine with the land they had, and some of the greatest monuments of all times are tarnished by being reconstructed elsewhere with the daming up of the river. They say now that the dam stops all of the fertile soils brought with the yearly floods, the farmers now have to use a lot of fertilizers and that the river beyond the dam is slowly starting to grow higher with silt.

We have spent the last 2 nights and 2.5 days on a felucca, traditional Egyptian sailboat, on the Nile. The trip is sold as a relaxing sail down the Nile. It was quite relaxing, none of the aforementioned hassles, but it definetly wasn't a sail. Don't get us wrong, it is a sailboat and would be quite spectacular moving with the wind down the Nile river. But, alas, we "floated" down the river onboard the vessel. The sails were unfurrowed only once to make up for 2 hours spent sitting at the side of the river waiting for the strong desert winds to subside. Although it wasn't exactly as we expected, we did enjoy our time on the boat. It was sort of relaxing, and it was a great way to see a short section of the Nile River and the lives of locals living along the banks. Besides, we are on Egyptian time for the next two weeks, and at times it makes South American time look fast.

Now we are in the home stretch of antiquity with a couple of days in Luxor to take in the Valley of the Kings and other such things before we head for some (slightly) cooler weather and some snorkeling in the Red Sea. Too bad everyone else has the same idea. Hopefully we loose some of our cynicism and chill out a little before we head back to the real world in the coming weeks.

Happy Canada Day.