Day 15 - Luxor & Aswan - Temples, Tourists

It's me again. Since I last wrote, my "traveller's sickness" came back for a day but I fought it off again. We went to Luxor for a couple of days, a city with a lot of ancient ruins. We visited Hatshepsut's temple (She was a queen who dressed as a man to command respect), the temple of Rameses III, and the city's main temple. They were all pretty amazing, but as I was there looking for unique, interesting images for the film rather than to explore them as a tourist I got bored quite quickly.

Hatshepsut's Temple, carved from the cliff face

I didn't take many photos at the temples as I spent most of the afternoons rushing around trying to get some good shots before the sun went down. The thing about Luxor is it revolves around tourists so much that everyone tries to sell you something or just asks you for money. They also assume I've just stepped off a plane (due to my blond hair and pasty white skin), and can easily be ripped off. The countryside outside the city was a welcome break from all this:

Green Egypt

One other thing that happened while we were in Luxor was that Egypt won the Africa Cup final against Ghana (1-0). We were watching it in a cafe. They scored in about the last 3 minutes, then they won, then the world went mad (in a good way). We spent the rest of the night driving really slowly through packed streets, pointing a camera at ecstatic crowds who waved flags and sprayed burning aerosol cans high into the air. This is the only photo I managed to get that night.

One nil

I'm not into football but it was a really amazing atmosphere, no one had been drinking (no one does in Egypt) so there was no violence or anything, and everyone joined in. So, after a cancelled hot air balloon ride - we waited in the basket for half an hour while the weather changed - we left for Aswan. Cue lots of lush green farmland followed by the kind of rocky landscape you could imagine Captain Kirk and Spock beaming down onto. Some farmers gave us sugarcane to eat, it was quite nice. Quite sugary.

Lush

These hills quite possibly have eyes

So, once we got to Aswan this evening we got a boat to the Isis Island Hotel on the Nile, it's five star and does a great buffet. We'll explore Aswan tomorrow, then it's on to Sharm El-Sheikh, party capital of Egypt!

Night boat to Aswan