Day Four

This day didn't start out so great, but it turned out to be a great day of touring Aswan. We got up early to have a little hotel breakfast before meeting our driver to take us to the train station. The food in the hotel was not what I expected as far as what I consider breakfast food. There were several bean dishes--fava beans, garbanzo beans, black eyed peas--some salads, and bread. They did have an omelet bar so that's where I went. And, of course, they had Nescafe--pretty much the only coffee available in Egypt.
We got on the train early and were very disappointed with our seats. We were able to get a private cabin but it was extremely dusty and the air wasn't working. Also, it seemed that outside our door was the go-to place for people to smoke. The worst part about this was that it was the workers mainly who were smoking and it seemed to be the norm so there was no amount of complaining that would get them to stop. We all wanted to sleep but were all too irritated by the dust and smoke to get any real sleep--the kids didn't seem to mind too much though.

With no sleeping going on, I was thinking about our trip so far and realized that I was actually grateful for this leg of the trip because had it not been for this I would have been unable to be satisfied with the rest of the journey. I came to the conclusion that without experiencing the bad, we cannot appreciate the good and this was, in a way, the main lesson I took from my whole stay in Egypt.

Luckily, this was the shortest train ride and we arrived in Aswan early in the day. We found a driver to take us around the town and our first stop was at a little masjid that Asmaa and I just loved, I just wanted to bring it home with me.

We then made our way up to the High Dam and did some drive-by site seeing on the way--we had to catch our train back to Alexandria so we had to be quick about seeing Aswan.

The road up was interesting because on one side was complete desert and on the other was lush gardens, but on both sides were signs of electricity.

Electric company

All of us on the High Dam

All of us again on the other side

The friendship monument displaying the relationship between Egypt and Russia (who financed the dam after the US said no)

We got back in the car and drove toward Philae--a small island in the Nile. This island contains several temples that were once flooded as a result of the construction of the first dam.

The market we walked through before renting our boat to take us to the island. The Coke store sign says Abu Karim Market (Abu Karim=Father of Karim).

This guy looked pretty hardcore, although I'm not really sure what he was guarding.

Our boat

Some people left their own carvings

I guess this was the site of a famous Egyptian music video so the kids were excited. I've never seen the video so don't know if this is the exact spot.

We got back on our boat and made our way back into town to a nice seafood restaurant. Ahmed and his sister set out in search of goods to take home, as there are certain things that can only be found in Aswan, or that just grow and taste better than what is found closer to the Nile delta. For example,  peanuts, cinnamon, red peppers, dates, pepper corn, and other spices.

At the train station our groups split and Asmaa and the kids headed back early and we decided to take the sleeper train and spend one more day in Cairo before heading to Alexandria. The sleeper train was great and something I would do again if we ever travel Egypt like that again.