Edfu
In general, our day today was to be pretty light, with only one excursion in to Edfu where we docked the previous night. Sadly, it doesn’t translate into getting up much later, as we need to be awake, dressed and done with breakfast by 8:00. We know from yesterday that we don’t have a guide arranged here, but are hoping that if we look sad and pathetic enough that someone will take pity on us and let us latch on.
Sure enough, one of the guides for an Australian couple offers to at least help us arrange to get from the boat to the temple site without getting ripped off by the carriage drivers (the temple is about two miles away and transportation for everyone is horse-drawn carriage). We are soon on our way, and the driver offers to let me join him up front and passes over the reins. The horse has probably made this trip a few hundred times, so I figure, what could go wrong?
I figure I pretty much have the hang of it – pull left to go left, right to go right, and back to slow down – and have just settled into a masterful rhythm, when something (probably my unexpectedly awesome skills) spooks the horse and it takes off. In her comfy seat, Ang takes it all in stride, but after trying to play it cool while the driver tries to calm him (or her, I didn’t really check) down, I quickly go to plan B, which essentially boils down to looking for anything close by to hang on to.
Our little piece of excitement over, we arrive at the temple site where the guide from our boat sells us some tickets and we follow her through the gate. The Australians don’t seem to mind having us around, so we ask if it is OK if we join their tour and share their guide, and just like that, our problem is solved.
Of all the temples in Egypt, Edfu is in the best condition, so in large part, what you see today is the closest there is to what it would have looked like a few thousand years ago. The colors are faded and much of the roof is missing, but it is in such good shape, it feels a lot like a movie set. All of the cruise boats are on a similar schedule, meaning they have all disgorged their passengers to see the temple in the same one hour window, so it is quite crowded and a bit difficult to hear the guide as she explains the history, but we get the general picture of what we are looking at and are able to take a few pictures before our tour is done.
One thing we’ve noticed is the high level of security that is present. To enter, you need to pass through a metal detector like at the airport and several armed guards. Of course the guards are usually sitting down reading the paper, and they don’t stop anyone going through the metal detector, so it is just one long beep and people with cameras and pockets full of change stroll through. At one of the temples, the guard asked us a couple of time “No bomb?”. We looked at him, slightly concerned that we had set something off, and he started laughing like it was the funniest joke in the world.
For the rest of they day, our only plan is to cruise the rest of the way to Luxor, so in theory, it should be some time to rest a bit. I use the time to try and catch up on a bit of work (the Internet is spotty, but enough to take care of the major things) and Ang heads down to the front desk to see if we should expect a guide in Luxor, as we know we will need one given the number of things to see there.
When they ask her if she wants a 7:30 wake up call to check out by 8:00, she is a bit surprised, as the trip we booked in Cairo had us staying on the boat until Tuesday. The desk clerk called his head office, and they confirmed that we were only booked for three nights instead of the four that we paid for (there it is, the sound of the second shoe dropping) and that there really wasn’t anything he could do since they needed to get the boat ready for the new group of passengers that would be going back to Aswan.
After arguing a bit, it is clear that he really can’t help, in part because there is no one on the boat he can talk to (since we are in the middle of the river), and in part because his English isn’t that good. We do give him the number of the agency we booked with in Cairo and he is able to reach their office in Luxor. They tell him they will send a representative to meet us that evening at 8:00 when we arrive, and with no other options, we just try to enjoy the rest of the day, mostly sitting on the roof deck reading a book, and drinking one of my contraband beers.
When we arrive in Luxor, sure enough, there is someone there to meet us. Ang is convinced that we are going to just get the shaft altogether, while my bet is that someone will bribe someone else (who may then need to bribe a third person) and it will eventually all work itself out. Neither of us is right at least for today, as Mohammed from the agency tells us that we should just check out in the morning, leave our luggage on the boat while we go on a tour, and that when we get back, the problem will be solved.
The worst-case scenario it seems (once we have ruled out the boat leaving port with our luggage while we are gone), is that we will end up having to check into our hotel in Luxor one day early. Of course that’s not ideal, but overall, if that’s the worst thing that happens while we are here I’ll consider it a successful trip (and being stuck on a boat for four days, I haven’t had the opportunity to be scammed so have some extra money in the budget). Like all days, we need to be up early in order to catch our tour, so we plan to call it a fairly early night and see what tomorrow brings.