We started our day at 4am by catching a hot air balloon from the other side of
the Nile. On the boat across, we were unexpectadly supplied with coffee and
Twinkys. We shared the balloon with Japanese tourists and a pilot with a sense
of humour. I hadn't expected the fire part of the balloon to be so close to
our heads, nor so loud.
The wind took us away from the Valley of the Kings and across the Nile. We
upped and downed a bit, with the pilot explaining that flying close to things
(the Nile, tops of trees...) is more fun. We saw the sunrise, and lots of
Luxor from above. We almost landed in someone's field but a disgruntled
looking chap on a donkey waved us away. So we landed in the next field, with a
ground crew of local kids, who had been chasing the balloon's progress for the
past ten minutes. The pilot warned us not to tip the kids or we'd have to pay
them all, and to keep hold of our bags. We stayed in the basket whilst the
balloon was haphazardly bundled away before traipsing through mud to the
waiting minibus. An experience of a lifetime. I got some cool photos.
Back at the hotel we slept for an hour before digging in to the remaining
birthday cake and heading out to Karnak Temple by horse and carriage. Karnak
is huuuuge. Afterwards we went back to bed again before lunch.
Al and I set out on a hunt for the kushari shop, which should have been a
couple of minutes walk from where everyone else went for lunch. En route we
encountered a young man desperate to sell his shoe cleaning services to Al,
who had jut stepped in something disgusting. This proved to be at a crucial
point in the journey as the distraction meant we missed the turning we were
looking for. Next we met the infamous Christian Mike, a toothless carriage
driver wwho misdirected us and we walked for a further forty minutes or so
into a distinctly tourist free area. Fortunately we didn't get charged for
this pleasure.
Eventually we circled back and found an enormous tourist information centre.
The friendly staff directed us around the corner where finally! Kushari. A big
takeaway tub for 10LE. That's about a quid. As expected, finding our way back
to the cafe where the girls' were took two minutes and we all returned to the
truck.
Cue: four hour drive to Aswan.
We checked into the Orchida St George Hotel, where they welcomed us with cold
karkarde. Score.
That evening we ventured into Aswan town. The tourist stuff is mixed in with
the locals' stuff and veryone is much more laid back. We still got about the
smae number of 'hello!', 'where from?', 'welcome!', 'spice girls!', and Al got
plenty of 'lucky man, five wives!', but people seemed marginally less
desperate to sell us things.
We did struggle to find somewhere to eat though. Eventually we went into a
dogy looking cafe which we decided was definitely a front for a secret mafia
related organisation. It was run by a stoney-faced fellow who didn't seem as
thrilld about having customers as other places have been. The food arrived
incredibly fast and there was definitely evidence of it being fetched from
down the street. It was hella cheap too though, and by the end the guy running
the joint seemed to have cheered up. Out of nowhere his mate arrived with
something sweet on a fork and inserted it into Lizzie's mouth. He had a small
selection of apparently complimentary sweet coconutty things which he insisted
we finish off. They were tasty.
And thus ended the longest birthday ever. I was starting to get depressed
about the impending end to the trip, especially with all of the UK riots news
that was trickling through. Everyone we had encountered in Egypt was friendly
and welcoming, providing contrast to what at the time felt like the country
full of thugs to which I belonged. But let's not dwell. We went to bed early
for yet another 4am wake up.