further down the river

7:52 / 6:52 24 August, Buffalo Island

Right now I'm sitting on the gangplank of our felucca, listening to the waves roll in off the river as the captain finishes making tonight's dinner. My last two days have been spent cruising down the Nile on a felucca, reading, reflecting, and generally relaxing. We left Aswan yesterday at noon (or perhaps at 11:00, depending on if you're on RLS, Ramadan Light Savings) with Captain Fanan and his trusty first mate. A felucca is a single sailed ship, usually around 10 meters long, with a wide, open deck. The deck is cushioned, and a cloth is hung about a meter high to provide shade to the passengers. The full compliment of our felucca is six passengers: Devin, Allisa, two Spaniards, a girl from Japan, and myself; as well as three crew: Captain Fanan, his co-captain, and the first mate. Making one's way down the Nile in a felucca is a process of serpentining from bank to bank against the perpetual headwind that blows against the flow of the current. Meals are prepared for us by the crew, and have thus far consisted of simple but tasty Nubian fare.

Water buffalo grazing by the banks.

Local fisherman plying the waters.

The first day we lazily made our way past palms and date trees, making a few stops before mooring for the night with a few other feluccas. One of these feluccas was weighed down by a plethora of noisy Brits, whose obnoxious behavior and general reinforcement of negative stereotypes of Western tourists does not deserve further mention. With no electricity, we stayed up playing cards by candlelight for a while before slumping off to bed.

Sunrise on the Nile.

The next morning I woke before my fellow passengers, and quietly slipped aft to watch the sun rise over the Nile. By the time the sun had climbed to four times its height, everyone onboard had shaken off their sleep, and we sat and chatted while breakfast was prepared. Eating at an unrushed pace, the crew were equally unhurried in their efforts to cast off, but eventually we were back on the river. I took advantage of one of our stops to collect some desert glass that had been smoothed by the current of the Nile, pretty neat stuff. During another stop I followed the first mate into town to collect provisions, and I was able to off load a number of pens that I had brought along with me as gifts to the local children. Before leaving, I had read that children in Egypt really like pens, and so my mother and I had purchased a whole mess of them, which I have been toting around the world in the hopes that the rumors were true. My hopes were not disappointed as I am now down to a scant few having been mobbed by the local children whose smiling faces proved irresistible.

Tonight it looks as though we'll be congregating with some less irritating tourists, whose feluccas are also moored here on Buffalo Island (so named by yours truly) and then sleeping under the stars.