Wonderful Aswan for a few days

We had the best part of three full days in Aswan, Egypt. We felt Aswan would be a good base for us as we knew we wanted to make the day trip south to near the Sudanese border to see the temples of Abu Simbel (more on this in a separate post). Also, while still a reasonable size, Aswan is a much less busy place compared to Luxor, so it turned out to be a good spot to do some low key family stuff together away from the big and busy sites.

Glorious beach and Nile swimming

We didn’t really expect to be on the beach in Aswan. But when you think about it, being surrounded by desert it makes sense to have a sandy beach. The real surprise though was how the Nile here is good, very good, for swimming if you choose the right spot away from the city. It is of course fresh water which was a very pleasant change from salty sea water. Given the heat of the day it was also refreshingly cool, and just had the novelty factor. We made sure to check that the massive Nile crocodiles, that can often be up to seven metres long, tend (generally!) to stay a long way up river in Lake Nasser.

We spent a wonderful morning swimming and playing on the beach at Barbar Naje which is on the opposite bank and south of the Old Cataract Hotel towards the nubian village. Mohamed and his boatman Labib took us there for a small fee. We were there midweek and in the off, hot, season so it was not too busy. But we did hear it gets much busier sometimes. For us though, we had glorious sand that extended in to the water making swimming easy. The water itself and the footing of the riverbed was pristine as it is essentially sand dunes extending into the water. Great times.

We were taught by Mohamed and Labib how to catch fish by hand knee deep in the muddy ponds nearby. Although some were caught they weren’t big enough for us to eat – “just for the cat”.

There were a couple of rocky islands that Jim and Rafe swum out to – but beware the Nile current is strong here. The current is due to the rocky outcrops known as the ‘cataracts’ strewn across this part of the Nile. The Cataracts also lend their name to the Old Cataract hotel, famous as the place where Agatha Christie wrote Death on the Nile. We have actually stayed there about fifteen years ago on a trip south when Helen was working in Cairo. But today it’s part of the Sofitel brand and brutally expensive even in this off-season.

The old souk

We stumbled into this while looking for snacks for the kids but it turned out to be a joy. Spice stalls abound and each with a friendly greeting and opportunity to sniff them for the kids – and most seemed happy even once they quickly realised there was no sale likely with us.

We had a really good lunch here actually, at the aptly named “Falafel” towards the southern end of the souk. The menu was short… but it was good. Decent but grainy coffee came from the place opposite, despite our best effort to ask for tea, which also provided the rickety stools and tables for lunch. We made some token haggle, still paid handsomely but came away happy.

Later on and further north up the souk we also had some drinks at a pleasant cafe amongst locals toking on hubbly bubblies. Again we left in no doubt we had paid tourist prices, but equally we had enjoyed it.

Overall walking the souk was a great way to get the kids immersed in life here.

Embracing the nubian hospitality

Our visit to Aswan was made a hundred times richer by the welcome and support of the people. Sure we were approached by street hawkers all the time, but all were good natured and gave up quite quickly. And for every hawker there was someone else just saying hello and welcoming us to Aswan. This was often followed by an enquiry as to where we are from. “England” was invariably met with “Mo Salah!” in response.

Mohamed is the owner of the Meshra Katto guest house where we stayed. In fact he lives there too. It is one of the quieter places to stay on Elephantine Island compared to the Bob Marley etc on the other side of the island. Mohamed is the very definition of hospitality. Yes you could certainly stay at his place as a base, use the ferry to the mainland and you wouldn’t need to see much of Mohamed for the whole stay. But you would be missing out. He happily facilitated most of our local trips – to the beach, the gardens etc. Indeed he actually came with us to the beach and helped us learn how to catch fish by hand under the rocks knee deep in the muddy riverside! Some of the most affordable and excellent grilled Nile fish dinners were no problem. We wouldn’t have had anywhere near as enjoyable a time, nor would we have discovered half the places ourselves, if it wasn’t for Mohamed.

Paying our respects to the Aga Khan

Gazing out from the roof of the guesthouse across the Nile there were what appeared to be several mosques on the hills opposite. Or so we thought. Mohamed informed us that one is a Coptic Christian monastery. The other, to our enormous surprise, turned out to be the summer palace and also the ornate mausoleum of the Aga Khan III, late leader of the Ismaili branch of the Muslim faith.

This all piqued our interest because two of our good friends Karim and Sara are both in the leadership of the Ismaili faith in the UK. In fact we went to their three wedding celebrations, one of which was held in the glorious surroundings of the Ismaili centre which is opposite the Natural History Museum in Knightsbridge west London.

Realising the significance of the place, we set off on the boat and hiked up the hill to a good vantage point. The mausoleum itself has been shut to visitors for several years after the Aga Khan’s family realised that locals were seeking to profit from visitors. Nevertheless a fresh rose is still placed on his final resting place every day, in a tradition started by his wife. The palace is also kept in top condition and is sometimes still used by the family.

Aside from seeing the Ismailia up close, the other highlight of this trip across the river was the sand dunes. Much fun was had by Rafe scrambling up them, and then rolling back down. We had to give all his clothes and indeed Rafe himself a good shake out to get rid of the sand when we got back that night.

The botanical gardens

Barely a few hundred metres upriver from our lodgings is an island dedicated to the botanical gardens. With time to kill on the morning of our departure we took a swift boat ride up there with zero expectations. And we are glad we did. The relatively cheap 35EGP per person was good, as was the river breeze and shade afforded by the mature global trees. Oddly this was also the site of some of the persistent souvenir salespeople.

It turns out Lord Kitchener of the British Army was a keen botanist as well as a military man. He was gifted (!) the island when he was Consul-General of Egypt and established the gardens in the 1899. The local word is that over the last decade the gardens have lost some of their lustre, but they certainly worked for us as something different to do with nature and the kids. The wildlife bonus was the several hoopoo birds, ibis and cranes roaming around.

Getting in and out

We could have flown down from Cairo to Aswan but sleeper trains are the kings of transportation, cheaper (in Egypt at least) and taking the overnight train means we save a night of accommodation. And it feels much more adventurous than flying. A taxi dropped us into the absolute sea of humanity all trying to get someplace outside Rameses station – the main station in Cairo. But once we had made our way through and into the main hall all was serenity and glorious architecture. Our Watania sleeper #86 arrived at platform eleven and we were aboard, fed (largely bread-based, bring snacks and water if you are doing this trip), settled and snoozing in no time.

Initially we thought the air conditioning in the cabin was barely working, apparently delivering little more discernable breeze than an asthmatic mouse. But to our surprise by midnight the aircon had started to win the fight with the heat, to the extent that we had all made a beeline for a sheet to cover us in our beds. Although we left broadly on time, we arrived into Aswan around three hours late for no apparent reason other than it all went a little slower than expected. No problem for us though as we had little planned in advance.

For those looking to book this train, the operation is outsourced to Ernst. Again, it went exactly as Mark @ Seat61 suggested. Booked online direct with them, printouts required and used not just for ticket checks but also so the helpful station staff could point us in the right direction. Ramses station in Cairo was both chaotic and beautiful. We should add a note of thanks to Menna who taught the kids the Arabic numerals over lunch with Helen’s Cairo bp team which enabled us to locate the correct platform!

There was much excitement and some concern from Dessa as our bags had their first rooftop adventure of the trip (the bags had already been in Fabio’s ute / pickup earlier in Tuscany).

After our few days we left Aswan for Luxor on the 1600hrs train #2015 from platform 2. This was a scenic trip with a highlight being something we have not seen anywhere before; each seat or pair of seats cancel swivel on its axis to make a four facing each other. We didn’t have the Arabic to tell the helpful train attendant that while this was remarkable, we didn’t really want to talk to each other and would prefer the back of each other’s heads! So it was that we had to talk to each other for four hours.