From Cairo to Aswan

Anyone who grew up in the 50s or 60s will remember the words "Aswan Dam." One of the world's largest building and engineering projects. The Russians paid for and helped engineer and construct the world's largest dam on the Nile River. Huge controversies because damming the Nile meant flooding hundreds of thousands of Nubian natives who lived in the area to be flooded. Our tour guide said the Nubians were "transferred" into Aswan. Yeah. Some "transfer."

We flew from Cairo early morning to Aswan, Egypt's third largest city with about one million population.  It's located in the middle of stark desert. Sand everywhere. Once again, though, trash everywhere. Lots of dilapidated buildings. Lots of new building. All of Egypt's electricity is now generated at the new "High Dam" as they refer to it. The "Low Dam" is a British built dam from the late 1800s. We're going to see the High Dam tomorrow during a tour.

One note before I forget it. Our trip includes two young and rather attractive women, both daughters of parents on the pilgrimage. We joked about one of them being worth "10 camels" in the parlance of marriage here in the Middle East. No joke, the other one got a real bonafide offer of marriage when we were in Bethlehem. How much is she worth? 20 camels! She's a graduate of Texas A&M and feels she can get a better deal on marriage back in the United States of America.

Back to Egypt. We arrived on our Movenpick cruise ship which we'll be on the next three nights as we cruise the Nile from Aswan to Luxor. We'll visit all the famous temples and pyramids before we get to Cairo. There, we'll visit the famous Egypt Museum and see the Sphinx and pyramids.

Mid afternoon, we went on local sailboats up and down the Nile. While it was 100 degrees here today, it was pleasantly cool on the Nile. We saw landmarks and important sites from the river and were offered exotic and beautiful arts and crafts on the boat. Following dinner, a group of us ventured into the local bazaar. You just have to see these to believe it. Every city/town we've visited has had a huge bazaar in its center. Narrow walkways with small shops/kiosks on either side. You can buy almost anything and the merchants and the young boys they hire to hawk their wares are aggressive.

This evening, the captain introduced his crew and hosted a welcoming party for all us Texans. It was splendid complete with a dance floor featuring blinking strobe lights. I was astounded by how well some of our pilgrims danced. Obviously, they remembered moves from their teen and college years. No telling how sore they'll be tomorrow but it was a pleasant diversion after being on buses and flying in this morning.

Internet access will be spotty once we set sail tomorrow around 12 noon (5 a.m. Texas time). More as I'm able to get Internet access ($15 for two hours on this boat).

I apologize. My system isn't allowing me to upload any photos. I'll re-try tomorrow or
Sunday and catch you up.