Journal: Sunday 24 November 1996
I was sad. This was my last day in Egypt. I had been in the country for two weeks and it felt like months. Time in Egypt has a strange quality, the days rush by in a flurry of activity but seem at the same time to stretch on for eternity. I could not imagine leaving behind these endlessly bright sunny days (well – apart from the rain) and going back to a cold, wet, English winter and to work. I sat by the edge of the river looking across to the West Bank, a scene which will forever be etched in my heart, and thought about this trip. I had so enjoyed the cruise, lazy days watching the timeless countryside as we drifted by, interspersed with exciting visits to the Nile temples between Luxor and Aswan. I had learned a lot. This time I had known more about the monuments I was seeing, I could remember at least some of the names of the powerful gods and kings who once populated this land and I could recognise some of the recurring themes of architecture and hieroglyphic writing. I had been introduced to the god Seth and his violent storms, to Isis, Sekhmet and all their families. I had witnessed the horrors that storms in Egypt can bring with the sinking of the cruise boat at Esna. I had watched the rising waters of the Nile, still a red-brown muddy torrent the colour of blood. I had sailed peacefully a couple of times in a felucca on the river. They say that anyone who drinks Nile water will always return. Well, the closest I came was to cup my hands and wash my face in it, but maybe I drank it too, as the purified tap water must originally come from the Nile.
Most of all, this trip introduced me to the marvellous Egyptian people, always full of kindness and generosity and I had made several friends, who I would miss when I got home. I would miss the beautiful sound of the Arabic language, a few more words of which I had learned. I would miss the chattering children who magically appeared wherever we went, shouting ‘Hello, what’s your name?’ ‘Where you from?’. I would even miss the touts and felucca guys on Luxor or Aswan Corniche, with their twinkling eyes shouting, ‘Very beautiful, I love your smile, come for a sail on my boat?. I tried to imagine these felucca captains standing on the sea-front at home trying the same line of patter with the tourists. It made me laugh.
I had finished my packing and said goodbye to my hotel room at the Isis which had been a superbly comfortable home for the past week. I wished I could take the balcony home with me so that I could continue to wake up at dawn to a view of the Theban Hills and the sonorous sound of the early morning muzzein’s call to prayer from minarets all across town. It was time for my airport pick-up. What made it worse was that I was leaving, but my two friends who had come a week later, were staying on. I hated Luxor departure lounge which had not been modernised at that time. The waiting was endless on the rows of hard red plastic chairs, hundreds of tourists enclosed in the hall like cattle with no fresh air. I could see that the sun was setting but could not be out there to bid it goodnight. The plane was late and I knew that I had to spend the night at Gatwick Airport at the other end before I could continue my journey on to Cornwall next day. I wondered why we who love Egypt put ourselves through this. But I knew the answer – that every second of my trip had been worth it – and I knew I would do it again.
Another problem with the convoy was that we were limited to the time we could spend in the temple. We were allowed exactly two hours and anyone not back by the designated leaving time was in serious trouble with the police. Robin, Lucy and I tore around Dendera Temple like we were on a mission. Most of our time was spent in the rooftop Osiris suite, which was very similar to the structure at Philae Temple in Aswan. I also wanted to look at the carvings in the Ptolomaic birth-house as there were reliefs of the hippopotamus goddess Tauret I had read about. I did enjoy seeing it again but it would have been nice to spend quality time there like we had last year. On a positive note, it meant that the temple was once more officially open to tourists (though not many at that time) and the café and bazaar were open, enabling a few of the local people to scratch a living again. We left Dendera on time, only to sit in our taxi at the Qena checkpoint for an hour waiting for the Hurghada convoy to catch us up. All we could think about was the extra time we could have spent in the temple, had we been allowed.
As the level of the ground above Luxor Temple was high, a mosque was built on top of the temple for the patron of Luxor, Sheikh Sidi Youssef Abu l’Haggag. When later, the houses were cleared away and the temple was excavated out of the silt and accumulated sand of a millennia, the mosque was allowed to remain, where it still stands precariously overhanging the temple walls. I was impressed by how many layers Luxor is composed from, both architecturally and spiritually. This mosque, built in the 11th century, symbolises perfectly the transition from ancient pharaonic to Islamic Egypt and more recently to the ‘touristic era’. Egypt is a land where everything is preserved in some form or other. The mosque’s western door may now open into thin air, high above the temple, but it is still considered to be the most important place of worship in the town.
Eventually arriving at the village we saw a picture-book image of the sort of place you imagine in bible stories, small flat-roofed mud brick houses in narrow, winding streets, barefoot children rushing to meet us, yelling in delight while narrowly avoiding donkeys loaded with fodder and tradesmen with hand carts selling unrecognisable items. Women in colourful galabeyas stood in the shadows of doorways watching us curiously, shouting at their children to stay close, they obviously didn’t get many foreigners here. As Abdu invited us into his house to meet his mother, chickens in the courtyard clucked and scattered and I could smell the wonderful aroma of newly baked bread. Abdu appeared to have many brothers and sisters and we must have been introduced to half a dozen of the elder siblings, while the little ones followed us everywhere with their eyes. We were invited inside the house, into a reception room with a hard-packed dirt floor. There was little furniture except for two wooden benches with long flowered cushions and a small table where a tray of tea magically appeared. Egyptian tea is served in small glasses and is very strong and very sweet as sugar is usually added in the brewing stage. Abdu had told us that most of his village worked on the land, a farming community where money and luxuries were apparently scarce. Hospitality however was not scarce and we were made to feel very welcome. Abdu spoke good English as he had worked for many years with tourists on his felucca and we had a translated conversation with his mother who was very sweet. She kept disappearing into a back room and coming out with photographs and small precious objects which she would proudly show us. We didn’t want to intrude for too long so we made a small donation for the tea and hospitality and said our goodbyes to Abdu’s family.
Next we were taken to visit the local school. Lucy is a teacher and she was eager to see an Egyptian school. Again we were greeted very warmly by the principle and taken into a classroom, shown the blackboard and books and encouraged to have simple conversations with the children so that they could show off their skills in English. They were all extremely polite and well behaved and the whole experience was very enjoyable. Between us we managed to collect up a bundle of pens to leave at the school for the children and we left as the school day finished, the children pouring out on their way home. We had also bought a box of sweets to hand out to them, but found this task a bit daunting, so Abdu did it for us. It was a like feeding the wild animals, but great fun as they all shouted and laughed with us.
were going to Banana Island, perhaps the only island in Egypt which is attached to the land! Banana Island, or Gezira el-Mozh, was a small, lush plantation of fruit trees (mostly banana) and sugar cane. The owner, Mr Lovely, made a landing charge of LE5 each person and ran a shaded café and bazaar in the middle of the peninsular. He was obviously an entrepreneur, subsidising his agricultural enterprise with tourism, but the fee did include a bunch of the small delicious bananas grown on the island. Stepping off the felucca into the trees was like stepping into a hot and humid jungle – complete with mosquitoes! The track wound around through the trees and shrubs, vibrant with colour, huge wide banana leaves forming a canopy overhead and creating a tunnel effect. We took a tour of the plantation, accompanied by several indigent dogs, the guide pointing out the bright pendants of banana flowers as well as fat clumps of ripening bunches. There were also many colourful birds I hadn’t seen before in Egypt. The trail ended at a café in a clearing and we all had a cold drink while we were fed endless bananas by the staff. We met Mr Lovely himself, who insisted we went into his bazaar – which was actually quite interesting with lots of more unusual crafts and all rather dusty and neglected. There was no a hassle policy and as we were told, it was all ‘Asda price’.
