Day 21
Today we woke up on our luxury river cruise boat. The cruise wasn’t due to commence until after lunch so Maria and I decided we would walk into town and explore Agatha Christie’s favourite haunt, the Winter Palace. Luckily, better heads prevailed and convinced us that if we walked into town we wouldn’t get back in time, so our Cruise Director organised for a gentleman named Nasser to come pick us up, take us into Luxor, and then bring us back by 11:00am.
Nasser sure was a character and probably the slowest driver in Egypt. When he found out that it takes twenty hours to fly from Australia to Cairo, he started thanking us profusely saying, “I should be paying you for coming here.” When I asked if that meant we didn’t have to pay for this taxi ride?, he threw back his head and guffawed, “Hahahahahahahaha…….No!”
Walking into the Winter Palace was like stepping into an Agatha Christie novel. We wandered through the picturesque gardens, admired the flamingos and took tea near the pool.
Before we knew it, we were back in Nasser’s taxi hearing all about his twenty four children (all under the age of seven), that he can’t afford to feed let alone put through school, and the numerous operations he needs for a problem with his left arm (it is where his right arm should be), and his back because he has no feeling below his shoulders. When we left him he was standing at the door of his taxi yelling after us that he has to make ends meet by “working twenty-nine hours a day!”
For the rest of the day we basically lazed around in our cabin, and on the sundeck. Occasionally the calm was interrupted and a bit of excitement ensued when a little blue rowing boat manned by two street stall merchants latched onto the boat, yelling at no one in particular to attract attention and then tossing a bag full of their stock onto the top deck for you to look at and possibly buy (though I have absolutely no idea how that works).
Around mid afternoon we hit a traffic jam as around seventy boats jostled for position to go through the Esna lock. The Esna lock is located between two sections of the river Nile where the water level of one is higher than the other. The boat enters the lock, water either fills (lifting the boat) or is pumped out of the enclosed section (dropping the boat), to the required height of the next section of the river. But it can only take two boats at a time so we were going to be there for a while.
Luckily, the crew had organised what they called a cocktail party, and kicked things off with a sudden explosion of impossibly loud “doof doof music”, followed by an awkward silence, followed by some guy (who may have been the Captain, I’m not entirely sure), who was either making a speech or reading an instruction manual cause he went into incredible detail about the mechanics of the engine room, as well as the exact length, breadth, height and width of the boat. Then there was another sudden burst of impossibly loud “doof doof music”, then silence, followed by some other guy who stepped forward and bowed for some reason. Then it happened again. A sudden burst of impossibly loud “doof doof music”, then silence, followed by another guy who this time stepped forward and waved at everyone. Amid the confused silence a voice rang out over the PA system announcing that the pretty coloured glasses of liquid on display were for us to enjoy though there was only enough for one each. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crowd at a party disperse so quickly without Police intervention.
After dinner it was our turn so we went back up to the sundeck to watch (it takes about twenty minutes), as we entered the lock and our boat was lifted to the height of the next section of river. Pretty cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment