2nd October 2009 – Day 4 - Aswan, Egypt

It is hot inside. The fan is cutting through the standing air and my white linen pants are stuck to the crunched sleeping bag which I’m sitting on. Yet earlier I was thinking about going to negotiate for discount with the hostel’s main man, Khaled, as we have no hot water but our fellow travelers in the other room do. Quite absurd but I’m sure there are a few souls out there who share my point of doing things by principle. I’m thinking of one good friend in particular. Besides, what we’ve seen here so far has also been driven by principle. No man of the souks is going to not try and push a deal for his friend as well no matter how much you’ve already spent in his own shop or resto. It’s just what is done, one must always push for the next deal for whoever while you’re pushing to finish your current one.

We visited Abu Simbel this morning as part of a tourist minibus transport convoy with accompanying police cars. The deal we had made through our hostel was for transport there and back with scheduled stops at other sites of interest, such as the Aswan High Dam which created Lake Nasser and the temple of Philae on one of the islands south of Aswan. The price included only transport, admissions we had to pay on-site. Abu Simbel we wanted to see and staggered through by admiring other tourists, but after that the mentality of these kinds of tours proved too much for us. After getting out of the car for the dam and paying a fee only to cross the road that runs on top of the dam, we decided to lounge through the other stops in our ways, either by joining the locals’ lunch table and ordering three helpings of bread and tahina or by just brutally staying in the minibus and snoring away in the boiling air of midday.

The Giants of Abu Simbel contemplate the tourists. A tourist contemplates Abu Simbel.

Tonight is an early night as some of us didn’t press their heads against the pillow at all last night due to the early 3.00am wake-up for the tourist tour. I think we’ve all had enough of Aswan and are happy to move on tomorrow morning.

T samples the local delicacy - Stuffed Pigeon