Day 17 - Aswan

A leisurely start to the day, so off to see the High Dam (built largely by the Soviet Union - very stylish "friendship memorial" combining the lotus flower of Egypt and a gear wheel to symbolise soviet engineering). When completed in 1971, the body of water behind it became (then) the largest lake in the world - Lake Nasser, 500km long, stretching into the Sudan.

On the way back, we drove over the Low Dam (built by the British in the late 1800s) from which you can get a rather fleeting glimpse of the First Cataract. No stopping for photos!

Then it was on to the Temple at Philae. This of course was drowned by the flooding of Lake Nasser, and later rescued from the depths, but only after all of its superb colours had been washed away. It has been transported to a new island, so you have to take a little ferry boat to get there. (The many - hundred or more? - unused boats shows the poor level of tourism in Egypt right now).

This was just great for us, as we had the whole temple to ourselves, apart from our own guide and one other family, and we spent goodness knows how long there, trying desperately to take everything in, including the relationship of all the many gods. Philae was dedicated to the beautiful Isis (devoted wife of Osiris, mother of Horus etc etc), and the Greeks / Romans identified her with Aphrodite / Venus.

PS the great obelisk from here went to Rome, where it stands at the centre of the piazza in front of St Peters - and we of course have the almost invisible Cleopatra's Needle. Sorry, am I sounding rather disgruntled??

Late afternoon was time for our cruise on a felucca and, yet again, this was just fantastic. I have always thought that a felucca looks so graceful, so elegant and here we were sailing up to the First Cataract against the sunset, the only sound being the creaking of the sail as we tacked, and the lapping of the water against the bow. And then, from absolutely nowhere, two young boys (surely max age 10?), appeared at the side of our boat. They were literally on a plank of wood and "serenaded" us with a variety of songs (eg "singing aye aye yippy yippy aye" etc). Quite fantastic - we all felt that they deserved a good tip, they had definitely deserved it. Then they paddled off into the gathering gloom, and caught hold of a passing tourist motorboat and did they same to them. We gave them a very deserved round of applause.

Passing by the Cataract Hotel (where Agatha Christie wrote "Death on the Nile"), we all decided to have a blow out and have a really good meal there - hang the cost! (expected to be very substantial, so perhaps it was a good thing that we found out that we had nothing like the correct dress attire, so were barred from entry). So we wandered around downtown Aswan again, and found an excellent local fish restaurant.

Tomorrow is the day when we should find out if our visas have been granted from Khartoum. If they do not, we have something of a problem as:-

a) we have had to send Helena off today with almost all our luggage on the freight barge. I am sure the other hotel guests are relieved at this - not sure what they thought of this large truck, surrounded by official bollards and chain, parked slap bang outside the entrance to this rather smart hotel.

b) if we do not receive visas, we miss the weekly ferry on Monday, and somehow have to take some kind of alternative action- watch this space!

I am not at all sure that I am looking forward to the intense heat of the Sudan, but as this will be unlike any country I have ever visited, I shall suffer in silence (well, knowing me, probably not in silence). Having said that, I think I must be honest and say that, whatever happens or does not happen on this trip, it has been worth every penny - and we aren't out of Egypt yet.

PS. If anyone knows how I can put the attached photos in the right sequence, please do let me know. Whatever I do, they always to end up rather jumbled, and they seem to have to go in a line at the end. Having said that, this may be the last set of photos that I ever send as this machine now says "this device is not supported by Ipad", or something similar, no matter what I do - as I have said ten thousand million times before "how I hate technology"