Aswan…as far south in Egypt as I went…then back to Cairo

Aswan:

Easy, quick Train ride to Aswan.  Easily found the nice hotel room.  They had folded a towel into a cobra snake and left that on the bed.  Apparently, someone thought this was a good idea.  I looked under the bed like 50 times making sure the cloth snake didn’t have any cold-blooded friends…

The markets in Aswan were more of the same…impossible to walk by without endless hastling.
First day in Aswan…the most impressive part of Egypt..the Karnak Temple.  Amazing pillars there.  A forest of 158 pillars, so tall and mighty greeted me just 100 metres into the temple and proved the most impressive part of the whole trip, as far as sights went.

I spent the second day exploring the west bank of the Nile and the toumbs found there, then rode a Camel over to a nearby monestary and an unfinished obelinsk.  The camel was real unhappy, so I just walked most of the way.  I felt like I was in one of those movies where the actors are stranded out in the middle of nowhere and the sand-combed dunes extend as far as sight allows.  It was beautiful.

The overnight train was easy and, on my last half-day in Cairo, wandered around a couple churches and markets I’d wanted to see…well, not really, but people told me not to miss them!  ;)  so, after begging a hotel manager to allow me to store my bag and guitar for a day…I was off on foot.  I’m still surprised I didn’t get hit by a car or that I wasn’t in a car accident.  Driving there is an art.  Truly.

Left Egypt, en route to Bangkok, Thailand.

This entry was posted on December 19, 2006 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Africa/Egypt, Pre-Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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