Day 13 - Sailing on the Nile, Nubian village, another temple, papyrus...
Last day in Aswan. In the morning, we boarded a motor launch for a sail down the Nile, stopped at a Nubian village, then went to a Nubian orphanage sponsored/supported by Viking. Next we took another motor launch ride to the Temple of Philae. Final morning stop was at a papyrus shop. Back to our ship for lunch and a nap. While we were lunching and napping our ship left Aswan and moved down river to Kom Ombo. After docking we were able to take a short walk from the ship right to the temple. The ship departed again after our tour and arrived at our final Egypt tour stop in Edfu late in the evening.
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Moving "up" the Nile on our little motorize launch... |
View of one of the many rock islands we saw along the way, papyrus reeds growing everywhere. |
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Inside a Nubian house. The owners served us hibiscus tea and sun-dried bread with a molasses dip, yummy! |
We also got to meet our first real live Egyptian crocodile... |
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... and his slightly older brother! |
Outside the Nubian orphanage sponsored by Viking... |
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Inside one of the classrooms at the orphanage... |
Children there are learning English, wow! |
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Next we took another motor launch ride to the Philae Temple. The Temple is actually on an island in Lake Nassar. |
Columns with Corinthian capitals. Is that Angela in the foreground? |
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Temple was previously located in area now covered by the Nile. An Italian firm moved it piece by piece to higher ground... |
A more obvious photo of Angela! |
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Beautiful intact carvings inside the temple. |
Surprise, ancient graffitti, aus Deutschland no less! |
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Last morning stop, a papyrus shop. We got a demo of how papyrus reeds are turned into paper and of course provided the opportunity to purchase the items they had on display... |
Another view. Most items were ancient Egyptian themed, but they also had Christian and modern themes. How about Marilyn Monroe on papyrus?! |
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Temple history/description board... |
Approaching the temple. |
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A close up of one of the entry columns... |
... and one of the column capitals. |
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Beautiful carvings in the inside columns... |
... and another, maybe they were friends? |
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They also had a crocodile Museum next to the temple... where is Paul Hogan when you need him? |
A crocodile statue? |
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Part of the temple was dedicated to the Egyptian crocodile god, so of course they found two dozen mummified crocodiles which were on display... |
Sunset over the Nile on our way back to the ship... |
