Travel Journal: Israel & Egypt, 1982 – Part 11

 

[“Travel Journal: Israel & Egypt, 1982 – Part 11” covers my second and third days on the Nile River cruise, with visits to Aswan (which I missed, as you’ll read) and the temples at Kom Ombo, Edfu, and Esna. 

[Again I urge readers who haven’t followed along for the whole journey to go back and read the preceding parts of my account.  Parts 1-5 were posted on 11, 14, 17, 20, and 23 July, and Parts 6-10 on 2, 5, 8, 11, and 14 August.  There will be one more installment of the journal after Part 11.]

Day 2 of Sheraton Nile River Cruise/Aswan/Kom Ombo – Monday, 27 December

When I retired last night, I felt a little punk—nothing serious, so I chalked it up to a very long day (which, you’ll recall, started at 2 a.m. and lasted till past 9 p.m. or so—19 hours; see Part 10).

When I woke up this morning, I was head-achy and my sight was a little bleary.  I was on the cusp of feeling a little queasy, too.  As I said earlier, I don’t normally suffer from tourista, so I assume that wasn’t the cause of my discomfort.  The boat hadn’t gone anywhere yet, so I discounted seasickness—to which I’m not usually susceptible, either.  (Can you even get seasick on a river boat?)

At breakfast, the cruise guide made a suggestion: heat or sun stroke.  We’d been in the desert all day the day before—pretty much all of Egypt is in the Sahara and we’d tromped around Abu Simbel for a couple of hours and then added the rest of that long day.  I concluded that that’s what it was

I decided it would be better to stay aboard the boat for the morning rather than risk getting any worse and ruining the whole trip down the Nile.  The boat was cool and the lighting was low, especially in the cabins.  So I stayed below and, as the French say, j’ai pris mes aises—I took it easy.

Well, I did say that the desert clime eventually got to me, didn’t I (see Part 7)?

By the time the rest of the group got back around noon, I was feeling much better. 

(I’d missed the High Dam and the older Low Dam—built in 1909—the Philae Temple, and the granite quarries.  The temple was another ancient monument, from the 7th or 6th century BCE, moved to save it from the waters of Lake Nasser and the granite quarries of Aswan, which today serve as outdoor museums or sculpture gardens, once supplied the stone for many of the monuments we’d seen elsewhere, such as the burial chambers of Zoser in Sakkara (Part 7), and Cheops, Chephren, and Mykerinos in Giza (also Part 7).  London’s famous Cleopatra’s Needle was also hewn in Aswan.)

While we ate lunch, the boat set sail for Kom Ombo, about 30 miles downstream from Aswan.  At 3 p.m., we disembarked at the Temple of Kom Ombo.  I was feeling well enough that I rejoined the travelers; I was just a little careful about sun exposure and over-exertion for the rest of the day.

There is a town of Kom Ombo, a farming community (mostly sugarcane and cereals)—almost all of Egypt’s crops are grown in the narrow strip of arable land along both banks of the Nile—but the temple is on the river bank and the boats dock and unload right there.  We only stayed an hour before reboarding and setting sail for Edfu.

The Temple of Kom Ombo appears to be a rarity among ancient Egyptian temples because it’s dedicated to a number of deities rather than just one.  (There are also architectural anomalies in the design of the temple as well.)  It dates to the Ptolemaic period, around 180-47 BCE (when the Greeks ruled Egypt)—though there was an older temple on the site from the reign of Thutmose III (reigned approximately 1458-25 BCE) and there are echoes of that past. 

Thutmose’s temple was dedicated to the crocodile-headed god Sobek who’s associated with pharaonic power, fertility, and military prowess and also protects against the dangers of the Nile.  Among the finds in the ruin were the mummies of several crocs.

At 4 p.m., we set off for Edfu, 40 miles farther down river from Kom Ombo, where we docked for the night. 

After tea and then dinner, instead of the disco, the cruise held a Galabia Party.  It was named for the floor-length robe worn by Egyptian men and women that’s a loose-fitting, traditional Egyptian garment from the Nile Valley.  Most, I believe from my brief observation, are made from Egyptian cotton, considered among the finest varieties in the world.

While I was still in Cairo, it seemed almost everyone I saw, from guides to workers and merchants, was wearing a galabia (pronounced ga-la-BEE-yah), which came in white for summer and heavier fabrics in plain grey, dark green, olive, blue, tan, or striped patterns for colder weather.

The thing was that the galabia looked so damn comfortable and easy that I decided to get one to wear at home.  Many street vendors were selling them, so I shopped while I was out walking on our free day (Part 9) and bought a dark blue-on-light blue striped one to take back with me.  [I wore it so much around the apartment that it eventually fell apart.]

The Galabia Party on board the cruise ship was essentially a cocktail party, but with silly games emceed by the boat’s staff.  The games all had an Egyptian motif . . . if you don’t mind cultural stereotyping: walking like an Egyptian painting or statue [inspired somewhat, I assume, by the Steve Martin “King Tut”sketch on Saturday Night Live; the song “Walk Like an Egyptian” didn’t come out until 1986—but the painted and carved images were all around us every day], belly dancing, dressing like a mummy, and other nonsense. 

Points were awarded and prizes handed out at the end.  I confess that I skipped this event because I felt I’d already pushed my still-slightly-shaky condition a little during the day.  It was a bit of a shame, too, since I actually already owned a galabia.  Most of the others had to buy one or rent one for the night from the ship’s “bazaar.”

Day 3 of Sheraton Nile River Cruise/Edfu/Esna/Luxor – Tuesday, 28 December

After breakfast, we disembarked at 8 in the morning and made for the Edfu Temple.  Once again, there’s a modern town, and here even an archeological tell south of the town with ancient pyramid ruins; but we spent only two hours at the temple, dedicated to the god Horus, depicted as a man with a falcon’s head.  Horus is one of the most significant gods in Egypt’s pantheon, the god of kingship and the sky among other functions.

Built between 237 BCE and 57 BCE, into the reign of Cleopatra VII (69-30 BCE; reigned: 51-30 BCE; this is the Cleopatra of popular imagination and stage and screen), the Ptolemaic temple is the most intact of all the ancient temples found in Egypt.

One reason for its state of preservation is that the temple was abandoned after 391 CE when all non-Christian worship was banned in the Roman Empire (of which Egypt was a part).  The disused temple was buried by the shifting desert sands and river silt deposited by the Nile.  Standing at 118 feet high, by 1798, only 79 feet were visible above ground level.  The temple was uncovered in 1860.

A sidelight: The inscribed temple texts include a mention of what could be construed as a theatrical performance.  There’s no archeological evidence that the ancient Egyptians had any kind of theatrical or dramatic performance tradition, but they did have religious festivals at which some scholars posit there could have been enactments of religious myths and stories.

One such could have been the “Sacred Drama” that recounts the unending conflict between Horus and Seth mentioned in the Edfu temple texts.  No one actually knows from any evidence found so far that there were dramatic performances in these religious festivals—but I note that the Edfu temple was built during the rule of Greek pharaohs, and the Greeks essentially invented drama (which, I should add, grew out of religious worship and was considered sacred to Apollo—with whom Horus was associated during the Greco-Roman period in Egypt). 

I’m just sayin’.

After the visit to the Edfu Temple, we returned to the boat and set sail for Esna at 10 in the morning, another 32 miles north along the river, arriving at around 2:30 p.m.  As at Edfu, there’s a modern town, but Esna’s temple is in the midst of it about 220 yards from the river.

Built starting during the reign of Thutmose III and completed in the Greco-Roman period (between 40 BCE to 250 CE), the temple is consecrated to ram-headed Khnum, the god of the source of the Nile and the creator of the bodies of human children, plus his wife and son.  The Esna temple, built of red sandstone, is considered outstanding for its location and its architecture.

We returned to the boat and during five-o’clock tea, we embarked for Luxor where we docked at 8 that evening for the night.  On the route downstream, the boat had to negotiate the Esna Lock about two miles down from the temple.  As we waited for the lock to drop the boat to the lower level, there were peddlers that sailed out to meet the cruise ships to sell their goods.

I said that we saw lots of feluccas on the river (Part 10); they’re sort of the workhorses of the Nile.  (Some river cruises sail on large feluccas, which are slower and more leisurely, and usually more expensive with fewer passengers.  Smaller feluccas serve as water taxis, delivering visitors from one river town to the next.) 

We usually moved too fast for the river peddlers to catch up to us except at the locks, and they took advantage of that.  The sellers, yelling “Yallah, yallah, yallah!” threw the goods up to the decks and the buyers threw the money down—and somehow it all worked out.

We docked in Luxor at about 8 p.m. during the dinner service.  Tomorrow would be my last day of tourism in Egypt.

[This was the next-to-last section of my chronicle of this trip; “Travel Journal: Israel & Egypt, 1982 – Part 12” will be published on Friday, 20 August, and will conclude this recovered journal.  The final installment covers my visit to the Theban necropolis, the ancient temples of Karnak and Luxor, my return to Cairo, and my departure for the U.S.]