November 18
Some of our tour group booked a side trip to Abu Simbel for this morning. The 3am departure, 3 hour bus ride each direction and the high cost of the trip did not appeal to me. Instead we opted to spend the morning relaxing in Aswan.
A leisurely breakfast with views of the Nile (our hotel directly bordered the river) was a great way to start the day. After breakfast we caught a cab to the Nubian Museum. A fair amount of haggling is needed on most transactions throughout Egypt.
The Nubian Museum is filled with artifacts and pictures from the area now covered by Lake Nasser. The amount of history lost with the building of the High Dam colored my time at the museum. An entire wing of the museum is filled with black and white photos as the only thing left from hundreds of known temples and ruins covered by the lake.
As with most sites in the tour, we pretty well had the place to ourselves until two bus loads of elementary aged children joined us at the museum. Addie was the star attraction for the Egyptian girls. They all wanted to take pictures with her. Addie was a great sport and posed with them until the teachers saw and shooed the children away.
We walked from the museum back to the hotel to experience the full on hassling of the people trying to get us to ride felucca or taxis. Back at the hotel, we took a dip in the pool and enjoyed the sun while reading and admiring the Nile.
When the remainder of our group returned from Abu Simbel, we boarded our felucca for an afternoon of sailing the Nile.
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