Cruising the Nile

By Mary Hartman

"One hundred and thirty five dollahs," the eager Egyptian barked, "For the two of 'dem.""Good Egyptian cotton," he added, with the look of a man about to make the 'Big Sale.' My husband and I were standing in a bazaar in Edfu, Egypt, site of the Temple of Horus - reputed to be the best preserved of the ancient Egyptian temples. I had slipped on one of the shopkeeper's beaded, navy blue gowns - the type of long robe favored by traditional Egyptians. Turning, I notice my husband decked out in a flowing two-piece white outfit, complete with turban.

"Good price," the vendor insisted. "Nice gift to take home to America."

Nice gift, perhaps, but not for $135. Though we regard ourselves as naive hagglers, we aren't THAT naive. "No," I countered. "Too much."

"But madam," the merchant implored, pointed to my husband's outfit. "Two pieces and turban. And, look at beads on your dress."

"Let's go," I prodded. "He wants too much - way too much." I slipped off my robe and handed it back. Barrie did likewise.

"Wait, madam - how much?"

The game ended a couple of minutes later when we handed the shopkeeper $35 and walked away, clothing in hand. We had just completed our first lesson in Egyptian-style bargaining. So zealous was the merchant that - after we'd finally settled on our price - he asked for an extra ten pounds (about $3) for hanging my camera over a hook while I had tried on my robe. I respectfully declined his request!

Two days later we would don our outfits and parade into the dining room of the "Nile Odyssey" river boat. There we and our 30 travelmates celebrated the traditional "Gallabiya Night," an on-board Egyptian costume party, traditional on most of the 300-plus river boats that ply the Nile between Luxor and Aswan.

"Gallabiya" generally refers to these vestments when they are worn by Egyptian men. For women, the same garment is simply a robe. These lightweight cotton garments protect from the sun, especially important during Egypt's summers, when temperatures easily can top 100 degrees - 115 degrees in Luxor and further south, which explains why we traveled in December. Temperatures on the Nile then hovered between a balmy 75 to 80 degrees F.

The Egyptian costume party was but one act in a week-long Nile River drama. From our ship and through shore excursions we saw Egyptian life as it is lived today and - as promised in the guidebooks - as it was lived 5,000 years ago. The enormity and splendor of Karnak Temple in Luxor was our first immersion into Egyptian antiquity. The question of that day, and every day thereafter, was "How DID they do it?"

It's a fair question. In Karnak's Hypostyle Hall, 134 majestic columns stand in perfect astrological alignment - mute testimony to the knowledge and mastery of the ancient Egyptians. Erected by the working classes on order of the pharaohs, these pillars comprise a massive forest of sandstone that reaches - it seems - to the heavens and beyond. Karnak's Hypostyle Hall is but part of a temple complex, that stretches across 100 acres - enough space to accommodate 10 massive European cathedrals. For 13 centuries, Egypt's pharaohs, including Queen Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh who posed as a man, added onto Karnak. Their work endures and astounds unto this day.

And, with the completion of their work in this life, the kings retired to their "afterlife," in the Valley of the Kings. Located on the west bank of the Nile near Luxor, this dry site was chosen by New Kingdom pharaohs (1567 to 1085 BC) for its remoteness - away from robbers who desecrated burial sites of earlier rulers. Here, hidden in tombs dug deep into the arid hillsides, the pharaohs and their possessions would be safe into perpetuity, or so they reasoned.

History tells a different story. Robbers discovered and ravaged these tombs, too, but much splendor remains today. Standing more than 100 feet inside the tomb of Ramses VI, we marveled at the hieroglyphics, which - even now - retain their rich primary colors - reds, blues and yellows - that were painted 3,500 years ago. How did artisans see so far within these passageways to carve, then color these drawings? Light was not provided by fire; smoke would stain the artwork. No, it was provided by reflecting mirrors erected at each cave's opening. Sunlight was beamed deep within the tombs, providing light as Egyptian artisans created their works of wonder.

As the Odyssey floated south from Luxor and stopped in Edfu, then Kom Ombo, we stood again before shrines ancient and magnificent.

At Edfu, we shivered our way through an early-morning stop to admire the Temple of Horus, the falcon-headed god. Rising early meant we arrived before the sun did -- but also before crowds emerged from the other boats docked at the Edfu pier. It also meant we were raw meat for the vendors who set up shop just outside the temple gates and zealously awaited the first wave of tourists.

At Kom Ombo, 105 miles south of Luxor, we disembarked to visit Egypt's only "twin temple" dedicated to two gods, Sobek, the crocodile god, and Horus the Elder. The sheer beauty of Kom Ombo's position on a cliff above the river, with the late afternoon sun radiating onto the temple walls, surely must eclipse even its historical sacredness. We had just rounded a bend in the Nile and there she stood - this temple, this queen of the river - bathed in the soft light of the soon-to-be setting sun. Simply put, Kom Ombo is a stunner.

But, a Nile cruise is not all temples and tombs. It is people - rural Egyptians and their ever-present animals living today as they might have lived centuries before. The images along the river are indelible: mud-walled villages each with its minaret from which the Islamic call to prayer is issued. Men prostrating themselves in worship along the river bank. Circular cattle pens fabricated from bamboo and stalks of sugar cane. Gallabiya-clad farmers wielding hand plows pulled by cumbersome water buffalo. Tiny sway-backed donkeys carrying impossibly heavy loads of fruits and vegetables, sugar cane and palm timbers and - sometimes - oversized humans. Children in school uniforms headed toward their rural village classrooms. Camels plodding in circles, turning ancient water wheels. Cattle and sheep grazing the lush grasses that grow on islands in the Nile. Men in small wooden boats fishing for Nile perch.

A Nile cruise also is Mother Nature at her best - Exotic scenery, which most of us glimpse only on picture postcards.

• To the east and to the west, a mile-wide ribbon of green created by irrigation water from this, the world's longest river system. Water in abundance supports bountiful crops of bananas, date palms, alfalfa, vegetables and fruits, which grow and feed all of Egypt.
• Mountainous sand dunes lie just beyond - the beginning of the Sahara, which expands and covers a thousand miles of Africa to the west.
• The setting sun in all its majesty, spreads first a soft blush over the river, then transforms the riverside palm forests into black and chisels them into the orange western sky.

The distance between Luxor and Aswan, the southern terminus for a Nile River cruise, is but 125 miles, but the trip covers immense chapters of world history from Karnak Temple, begun 15 centuries before Christ, to the Aswan Dam, built in the 1960s. Arriving in Aswan, cruisers can opt for a day trip, by air, to Abu Simbel to witness the massive reconstruction of the Temples of Ra-Harakhte and Hathor, built by Ramses II. Most on our cruise made the 175-mile flight, marveling at what they saw there. After the building of the Aswan Dam, the rising water of Lake Nassar threatened the temples in their original site. Beginning in 1965, a massive undertaking by UNESCO resulted in relocating the temples to Abu Simbel.

As tempting as Abu Simbel was, my husband and I opted to stay in exotic Aswan. Joining fellow travelers, we hired a carriage to take us from the pier into town for the ultimate "bazaar experience." (As if we hadn't had enough of bazaar haggling in Edfu!) Thomas, our amiable carriage driver, provided an Egyptian experience of another sort - chattering with us about his two wives! Each knows about the other, Thomas provides for both and amicability reigns! Indeed, we were in another world!

Walking through the Aswan Bazaar, where meat hangs on hooks (complete with the requisite flies), where hawkers peddle everything from Egyptian lace tablecloths to thongs imported from China, and where vendors sell home-grown cabbages the size of beach balls, we were reminded that we were a long way from Wal-mart!

Egypt is a sensory experience, and our senses were catapulted into high gear later that day. Boarding a felucca, a traditional Nile River sailing boat, we floated serenely past Elephantine Island, so named because, to earlier Egyptians, the granite rocks in the river resembled elephants swimming. The rocks signal the first in a series of cataracts, which spell an end to the navigatable stretch of the Nile. Thus, all river cruises end at Aswan.

Drifting along in the felucca, the mausoleum of Egypt's legendary spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, stared down upon us from a sand dune above the river's west bank. Then, rounding a small bend in the river, the red-bricked Old Cataract Hotel came into view. Here Agatha Christie wrote "Death on the Nile" and Winston Churchill took up occasional residence. A walk through the hotel, past the Christie Suite, the Churchill Suite and the Presidential Suite, is another walk through time. And, as we took tea on the hotel's veranda, immersed in another golden Egyptian sunset, it seemed we had stepped into the history books. We, too, were having our moment in this immortal place.

Most boats that ply the Nile between Luxor and Aswan, do so in one direction only. This means three or four days on the river, which - to do it justice - must be experienced for at least a week. We did just that, cruising south for two days, docking at Aswan for three, then returning to Luxor, with a stop at Esna Temple on the way. Berthing in Luxor overnight, our ship was our hotel, as we visited Luxor Temple and the ultra-modern Luxor Museum.

Then it was time to come home. We had been captivated by the Nile River and southern Egypt. The trip felt as if it had been a voyage on a magic carpet. It began with the present, took us back 4,000 years and, a week later, brought us 'home' again.