Fellucha Trip and Luxor

After we got off our train at Aswan, we went over to the Tourism Office to get more information about fellucha trips. The man was nice and helpful and arranged a meeting with a captain for us later that afternoon. So we checked into a hotel to drop our stuff off before walking around and our hotel obviously tried pushing their fellucha trip on us for 115 pounds a piece (about $23). We declined saying we already had a meeting with a captain set up but would keep it in mind. When we met with the captain there was a Canadian and two other Americans wanting information on it as well such as how much, what is included, etc. We all were looking at the trips up the Nile for two nights and three days so were trying to get on the same boat - since it holds a minimum of 6 you have to pay for 6 regardless of how many in your party. The 2 Americans did not think they would have time to do the trip so bailed out which just left us and the Canadian which we could not afford. Therefore, when we got back to our hotel we called the fellucha guy - Ako - and set it up through them since they already had 5 people signed up to leave the next day. We walked around the town for a bit, which really is not very big, and I was actually able to find some real saffron (as opposed to the powder most souqs in Morocco were pawning off as saffron) and we loaded up! Then we grabbed some dinner which was on of the best we have had in Egypt at Aswan Moon right on the Nile.

When we got to our fellucha the next day, we found our old buddies from Cairo, Matt and Tim, sitting on the same boat! We had two guides that steered the boat, but the trip turned out a little different than we expected. Lonely Planet made it sound like you got to see a bunch of sites while you sailed up the Nile, stopping at a few temples and various Nubian villages, etc. But we just sailed for a few hours then stopped for dinner and crashed for the night - apparently they can not sail after 8 pm. The food was great though! The next day we all thought that we would have to start sailing early to make up time from the day before (there were also 2 women from India and an Australian named Adam with us but the 2 women left the fellucha after the first night). The guides however did not seem too worried about it as we sailed in circles for a couple hours, then stopped and they charged their cell phones in a village while the kids played and swam near our boat. Then we did a few more circles before landing at our drop off point where a bus was going to take us to Luxor. Even though it was not what we expected it was pretty relaxing and we got a lot of reading done. When the minivan picked us up there were already people in it - after we picked everyone up we had an impressive 17 people in the van with all our luggage thrown on top. The van did stop at two different temples for us to see - the first was Kom-Ombo which we walked around, but the second was fairly expensive so we decided to pass. We arrived in Luxor a little after 2:00 and walked around to find a hotel. We found one that had AC and explored the town for the rest of the day. Then we woke up early to tackle the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank of Luxor. The Valley of the Kings holds about 62 tombs of Royal Tombs which can be overwhelming, but one ticket is good for seeing 3. King Tut's tomb was a separate ticket of 100 pounds and by far the smallest tomb in the Valley so needless to say we did not venture in that one. We found three that were fairly big and had most of the writing and paint still intact You were not allowed to take pictures inside but we tried to snap a few which all turned out blurry (you can try to see them on Flikr).

From Luxor it is onto Dahab on the coast of the Red Sea, which will take a 15 - 18 hour bus ride; exciting!!!