Egyptian Museum and more revolution

It remained quiet during the rest of the night. We have a slow morning, sleeping later than is our habit - we expect the Egyptian Museum to be less crowded in the afternoon. Dalia meets us at 11:30 a.m. and we walk to Tahrir Square for our much anticipated visit to the famous Museum. We circle around, going about five or six blocks out of the way, because the police are still interfering with traffic flow to impede freedom of movement.


We cross many lanes of fast traffic on several occasions – routine for a Cairene, harrowing for us. At the high court near our hotel and on the way to the museum, we see several formations of more than 100 black clad helmeted riot police which shields, body armor and long batons.

We had intended to remain at the museum until it closes at 6 p.m. It is very hard to know where to start, but Dalia, of course, has a plan. She also tells us she will stay in touch with Samir about what’s happening on the street.


We feel a real thrill as we pass through the gates onto the grounds of this world-famous museum. We know this can only be the cursory visit - the museum houses more than 120,000 artifacts, going back to pre-dynastic times.

Main gate of the museum

Our first stop is on the grounds of the museum where there are some beautiful large pieces on display.

Sphinx of Tutmoses III found at Karnak in the dedicated to Amun-Ra

Fragment of obelisk of Rameses II found at Tanis

A statue that seems to embody the concept
that behind every great man, there is
a great woman

Auguste Mariette,founder of the museum,
is buried in the nearby mausoleum on
the museum grounds

This butterfly, on the grounds of the Egyptian Museum,
is the only one we see well enough to identify in
our two weeks in Egypt (Catopsila florella)

Once we enter the museum, cameras are not allowed. (The pictures below came from various places on the Internet.)


Dalia tells us it seems to her that the museum is uncharacteristically uncrowded, and speculates that many people have called off their visit. Our visit turned out to be the last day the Museum was open, as the revolution took off. Dalia tells us, very regretfully, that most visitors to the museum are foreigners, implying that Egyptians do not fully appreciate their ancient heritage.


We start on the ground floor.

The main hall of the museum as you enter is breathtaking. You will see "in the flesh" ancient statues you have seen in books all your life. There is some frustration for visitors because labeling is rather haphazard. There is a very good guidebook to the museum (which can be purchased on line) but even that is far from perfect. Dalia says Egypt plans to build a new Egyptian Museum on the Giza Plateau for this wonderful collection. It will be air conditioned, which the current museum is not. That should extend the tourist season into the hotter parts of the year, and may help preserve the artifacts as well. Probably improvements will also include better labeling, but this minor frustration takes little away from the stunning collections. Dalia, of course,helps us to understand what we are seeing.


For the most part, the exhibits are organized chronologically, though in some cases the size of objects dictates their location.

Amenhotep III and Queen Tiy (18th Dynasty)
was originally located at Thebes, but Amenhotep's temple was
destroyed to make room for a later one, leaving only the so-called
colossi of Memnon to mark its location. This colossal group
was found in pieces at Habu by Mariette, and brought
and re-assembled.

Also 18th Dynasty is a statue of Tutmoses III - he became king when his father, Tutmoses II died, but because he was just a child, his stepmother became regent. She was the great Hatshepsut who entered up ruling Egypt as king for 20 years, long after Tutmoses III was an adult. In some places he is portraryed as "co-pharoah." with her.

Tutmoses III

Some of the painted images are especially striking. This couple, perhaps members of the royal family, was found in a mastaba near the Meidum pyramid. Their eyes are still amazingly lifelike, especially when you consider they are more than 4,500 years old, 2575 to 2467 BC.

Early 4th Dynasty, Rahotep and Norfet, painted limestone, inlaid eyes

We think the palette of Narmer may be of the most striking items we see in the museum.

This palette is thought to commemorate the victories of King Narmer, who came from the south of Egypt to invade the Delta in about 3000 B.C. He is today considered the last king of Dynasty 0 or first king of Dynasty 1, and is sometimes identified with Menes.

Thiis is how it appears in the museum

The interpretation of this palette has evolved since it was discovered about 100 years ago. It is said to represent the most important evidence that the first political unification in the history of mankind occurred in Egypt. The two faces of the artifact are topped by the name of Narmer inscribed inside the Serekh, or rectangular frame. In hieroglyphic signs, the chisel reads "mr" and the catfish reads "naar." (Namar is sometimes called the Catfish King.)

The Serekh is flanked by two female heads having the ears and horns of a cow, which could be the first representation of the goddess Hathor.

The scene on the front shows the king, followed by his sandals bearer and wearing the White Crown of Upper Egypt, smiting a helpless foe from the North.

The upper section of the back side shows the king wearing the Red Crown of Lower Egypt, followed by his sandals bearer and preceded by his vizier and four standard bearers. In the middle section, there are two men holding two felines with extremely long necks representing the people of the North and South under the control of the king and his men.

This is the Pharaoh Khafre, builder of the second pyramid at Giza

Khafre.We are impressed with the power of this pharaoh's face, and we also like the "embrace" of the falcon representling the god Horus.


This often used device also has a practical purpose, as it serves to strengthen the neck of the statue. Twenty-three identical copies of this statue were found in his mortuary temple. It dates to 2500 BC, and the artist was able to carve this masterpiece from very hard diorite with no metal tools.

Left: Yuya, gilded mask 18th Dynasty; Center; Old Kingdom couple, Seneb is a dwarf;
Right, statue of Khasekhem, 2nd Dynasty

Also on the ground floor are some of the best Amarna and Akhenaten pieces, including this unfinished Nefertiti bust and the painted floor of the Amarna palace and some of the wall paintings.

This floor survived in spite of the palace of mud brick being in complete ruins,
as we have seen in Amarna

We have seen a great deal but still realize we have barely touched of surface of what there is to see. Still we hear the protests may begin again today and decide to head upstairs to see the incomparable King Tut collection.


Tut died unexpectedly at the age of 18 or 19. because the body must be mummified, placed in the tomb and the tomb sealed 70 days after death, there was little time to assemble the sorts of treasures that would ordinarily have accompanied a pharaoh to the next world. But included in the tomb are many objects that Tut probably used in his daily life. For example, there is a case containing sandals, ranging in size from those he wore as a small child to ones he would have worn at the time of his death.




Dalia says she is very surprised at the Gold Room - usually she tells us there is a line to enter, but today, there are a few people in there (probably because of the protests) and we are able to look at the exhibits at our leisure. We stand and stare into the eyes of this, his death mask, as lifelike as can be imagined.





As beautiful of this iconic death mask is, some of the jewelry here is stunning beyond belief.

The solid golden coffin of Tutankamun is amazing not so much for its weight (300 pounds!), as for the fineness of the workmanship.

What is difficult to imagine is the richness of this tomb of a minor king to reigned briefly and died unexpectedly. Everything had to be completed and the tomb closed 70 days after the boy-king’s death. Just think of the treasures that must have filled the tomb of a pharaoh like Rameses the Great who reigned for more than 60 years!

There are some poignant things here too: sandals Tut wore as a little boy, toys he played with and a throne with endearing images of Tut and his sister/wife Ankhesanamun. The throne depicts a pair of young people who were very fond of one another. The throne, incidentally, has his original name, Tutankhaten. He was the son of the heretic king, Akhenaten, but abandoned Amarna, his father’s city in the Western Desert, to return to the traditional capital, and changed his name that honored the Aten, the one god of his father, to Amun, one of the traditional Egyptian gods.

The young pharaoh was reputably very fond of charioting and experts now believe that fondness led directly to his death. He suffered a broken leg and may have died of complications from that injury. Preserved in his tomb are a number of images related to chariots, including several of his chariots.

Continuing study of Tut's mummy has found other injuries and medical issues - possible injuries suffered in warfare, and what may be a congenital foot condition that may explain the considerable collection of staffs and walking sticks found in the tomb - some well used.

The power of some pieces, statues and sphinxes of pharaohs, have so much power and are so fine. We call off seeing the royal mummies of Seti, Rameses and others in favor of clearing out before an announced 4 pm demonstration across the street. The last thing we saw was collection of animal mummies, including a crocodile that must have been 20 feet long.


When we leave, we take a roundabout route through back streets to AbouTarek, a very popular restaurant for Koshary. This is a one-dish meal made with rice, noodles, lentils, spicy tomato sauce, and chickpeas with a garlic vinegar dressing and a crispy fried onions topping. The restaurant is full of ordinary Egyptians enjoying this meal. We find it positively delicious. There is a creamy rice pudding for dessert. When we leave we change course when we encounter a phalanx of riot police on what would have been our direct route back to the hotel. We go down a narrow street filled with impromptu mechanics working on cars on the street and sidewalk - another of these informal businesses we see everywhere in Egypt.

On the way to the hotel we pass one of the ubiquitous police wagons and there is a young girl crying. Dalia speaks to her and she says her brother and sister are inside the wagon and she doesn’t know why. When we get to the hotel, we find that all of the shops on the street are locked down with metal shutters (which we have never seen before). So we do without extra water or snacks for the evening. We promise to stay in tonight, as Dalia asks.


Today the Cairo stock market suspended trading, reopened briefly and dropped 10% - people are worried. Very big demonstrations are planned tomorrow in Cairo. We will get out of town at 8 am for Alexandria. We think we can avoid trouble there. We have the option of coming back to Cairo on Saturday to visit the bazaar (we think).

Before nightfall, we don't see a lot of activity, although there is a paddy wagon,
and a substantial police presence.

Because no one in the hotel could go out, the hotel made tea and offered us anything else we might want . Fortunately we are still full from our dinner and not at all hungry.

As darkness falls, there wereare more and much louder demonstrations, many more people, many more concussions – tear gas we think – hoping it’s nothing worse. Things do not quiet down until well after 11 pm. Again, we are packed and ready to go at a moment notice, should that become necessary. There are unanticipated advantages to traveling light.

Welcome to the Revolution!

We had boarded the train in Aswan yesterday evening for the overnight trip all the way north to Cairo. We were served a dinner as we rumbled north, and entertained ourselves writing our journals and reading our Nooks, before making up the upper and lower bunks and going to bed.

Dalia told us yesterday to be prepared – there might be some changes to our schedule. She had received a couple dozen text messages alerting her to demonstrations in Cairo and - and inviting her to participate. She has loaned us a cell phone so that we can keep in touch.

We wake up at sunrise, around 5:30, to find the train stopped. The train stops and resumes moving several times during the morning and our scheduled 7 am arrival is delayed until 9:30.

A local train at a station not far out of Cairo

Officials were waiting to see how the street demonstrations in Cairo might shape up. Our destination station is in Giza, on the west side of the Nile, across the river from Cairo.


There are thousands protesting in the streets of Cairo, we are told, inspired by the Tunisian uprising. We have the impression the police are caught by surprise. We understand Samir is out demonstrating. People want change, want to be heard, want police reform. Using radical Islamic movements as an excuse, the entire country has been under martial law for more than 30 years. Police and other security forces are excessive in their use of force. They arrest and detain people for weeks and sometimes people simply disappear. There is no due process, nothing like a bill of rights. There’s also a stifling bureaucracy and a sense that there is corruption everywhere. These are complaints we have heard over the last two weeks, and what we have seen seems to confirm their validity.

Dalia meets us at the train station. She has scoped out the situation, calling and texting her friends around town and we decide to proceed with our tour of Islamic medieval Cairo. We drive by the City of the Dead where several million people actually live. (Our plans had included a visit here, but because of our delayed arrival, we have to skip this.) This is an enormous cemetery in use for many hundreds of years that occupies prime real estate in downtown Cairo, probably more than a square mile right in the middle of the city. Inhabitants are generally the poor who can not afford the high cost of housing withing Cairo.


People have informally arranged a entire city infrastructure there with electricity, running water, waste disposal – it’s not a shanty town – it’s houses, constructed within and making use of the elaborate tomb structures.

We also drive by Saladin’s walled citadel on the high ground in Cairo, which is still a center of government administration.

We spend three hours on foot touring through many mosques, madrassas and kitab schools, palaces and a cistern that reminds us of the great Istanbul cistern. The building styles span the centuries from the Fatimids, around 900 AD to Saladin to Mamalukes to Ottomans. Lots of very beautiful and impressive architecture.

Beautifully delicate designs in stone

An Indian film crew wants to interview us about our impressions of the mosques – Jim declines (in retrospect, we wonder what they may have filmed during the next two weeks).

An "incense burner" minaret dating to 1303, at the Al-Hakim Mosque

The Al-Hakim Mosque, named after the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim, is one of a few Fatimid-era buildings in Cairo. It was erected in 1013 AD., and in 1303, after an earthquake two "incense-burner" minarets were added. (No, they were never used to burn incense but they are called that because of their resemblance to incense burners.) The courtyard seen in the picture above is part of restoration project in 1981, which added the marble and other non-original materials to the mosque.

We also visit the 19th century Suleyman Aga El-Silahdar Mosque with its Sabil (pubic water fountain), and the Ottoman era House of al-Suhaymi. This house was built around 1650 and added on to for another 150 years, providing living space for all of the harem ladies and their children.

In includes a lovely green open courtyard, designed to provide a cool refuge from Cairo's summer heat. The room below would allow the ladies of the house to look out and see what was happening on the street, but the clever window shield them from public view.

Below is a view of the windows from the street.

Glorious ceiling

Another ceiling

Th artistry in stone, tile and inlaid wood is delightful, and very typical of Islamic art through the centuries.

We walk to a corner of the famous Khan Al Khalili Bazaar, look at a few shops that have fixed (and very fair) prices and pick up a few things we especially liked, planning to return for much more shopping in the big bazaar on our last day before our departure from Egypt. (We never got back.) We doubt it would have equaled the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul, but it is reputed to be wonderful, with many uniquely Egyptian wares. Another "must see" for our next trip to Egypt.

Our plans for the day had included a tour of Coptic Cairo this day too, but because of the lateness of our arrival in the morning and the growing protests, Dalia decides this needs to be missed. She is in regular contact with others around the city and says she wants us back in our room at the Talisman (the same hotel where we had stayed on our arrival in the city) before people get out of prayers a little after 4.

Dalia stops at her favorite take-out place in Cairo and we get falafel, and Egyptian bread stuffed with ful medanes (sort of like flavorful re-fried beans), and she says we can order delivery from them later in the evening. She says we should not leave our hotel room. We stop at a little grocery in our “alley” to get water and juice.


We check back in to the Talisman and meet Samir in person for the first time. We both immediately like him – a very impressive man, tall (at least 6’ 4”, handsome and confident). We how delighted we are with the tour that Dalia provided – we are so happy that she has been our guide.


Samir says he believes we will be safe, but worst case we can evacuate to his home which is near the airport (if we can stand his two little kids!- that would have been fun!). We appreciate that there is a plan B. There is a big demonstration called for 8 pm tonight and no one knows what’s going to happen.

We take an afternoon nap and set ourselves up for action if necessary. Bags packed, clothes handy, passports handy, ready for a quick exit and stay alert.

The evening demonstration begins , peacefully and we look out from our balcony which overlooks an intersection, one block from the Supreme Court building and not far from Tahrir Square, where the demonstrators are congregating. We see lots of police on the street, a number of paddy wagons, and movable barricades redirect traffic to interfere with people’s movements.

From our bedroom window

We hear concussions and see a cloud of spreading tear gas on the corner by the hotel. There had been maybe 150 people moving by chanting loudly, and after the tear gas, we hear shouting and see people - and the pigeons on the rooftop - fleeing . More paddy wagons arrive on our corner, lights flashing, park there briefly and then move on. Things quiet down by 10 or so. Jim stays awake, reading and watchful until about 11:30.


more pictures here: https://picasaweb.google.com/eloise.hedbor/20110126?authkey=Gv1sRgCJiRj_WzmrXQjgE#

Back to Aswan and depart for Cairo

Alfresco breakfast at sunrise in Nubia – hibiscus tea, juice, fresh bread and a nice omelet, courtesy of the chickens they keep right there.

Then it is back to the convoy and a 3 ½ hour drive back north to Aswan.

In Aswan we take a motorboat trip, and tour around Elephantine Nubian village. Elephantine is an island in the center of the Nile at Aswan. It was the original ‘border town’ between Egypt and the Nubian lands to the south. In antiquity it a was important both for border defense and as a trading post.

The island has been inhabited from the Early Dynastic Period through Roman times through the present day. There are some well preserved temple ruins but we do not have time to see these. Maybe next time. Honestly at this point we are so saturated with temples and monuments, it would have been difficult to absorb any more.

We see traditional crops, fodder, narrow streets, and mud brick homes up to three stories high. In some places the home is on both sides of the street and there is a bridge at the second story level connecting the two parts of the home, as you can see above.

We had a very nice lunch with our host Mohamed who is the owner of Animalia House. His wife, a local math teacher, made and served the very ample amounts of food, to which we could not do justice. He gave us a great demonstration of all the ways Nubian people use date palms. The trunks made into sawed lumber, to frame their houses. The spines of the leaves make rattan that is fashioned into furniture, stiff baskets, fish traps, bird cages. The leaves are used to weave rope, mats, and flexible baskets - and of course there are dates to eat.

Rattan furniture and bird cages, made from date palm leaf spines

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He showed us how Nubians surround the courtyard of their homes with very fine sand and sweep it smooth with a date palm broom. Then you can see if there has been a snake or scorpion crossing the sand by its tracks. There was a pet tortoise in the courtyard – charming creature.

Traditional Nubian "kitchen"

Animalia House is a sort of museum including traditional rooms and furnishings, of plastered and painted mud brick, with clever ventilation arrangements and displays of he way of life along the river and the natural world that is now beneath the waters of Lake Nasser.

Nubians comprise ad 300,000 to 400,000 population minority in a nation of 86 million. Mohamed’s museum included mineral samples, an insect collection including scorpions and scarabs, preserved fish including an electric fish, an enormous (four foot long) Nile perch, and a very ugly catfish that is considered too unclean to ever eat. Tilapia of three kinds are the main food fish from the river.

His reptile specimens included horned vipers, cobras, and a huge Nile crocodile, as well as a little two foot croc that he said were sometimes kept as pets. He also had stuffed animals like foxes and jackals, and birds like falcons and herons.

As we walked back to the riverside with our guide, he identified more plants including castor bean, and the type of fig tree that is part of the Osiris legend. This is a variety of strangler fig that will completely enclose its original host and the story in the myth involves a tree that grows around the coffin of Osiris in Syria. It was turned into a column for a palace and Isis had to plead for it so she could reclaim her husband’s body.

Elephantine Island has a place in history and was a site of shrines in antiquity. Later there was a colony of Jews after the Diaspora from Israel. The name comes from large smooth rocks just off shore, thought to look like elephants.

We go back to Aswan and with Dalia we walked to the spice market. The merchant promises Dalia he will give us “local” prices. Jim selects about $5 worth of spices he does not really need and the merchant wants to charge 150 Egyptian pounds, about $25. Jim just walks out and the shopkeeper wants to bargain. Cultural incompatibility. Dalia seems a little embarrassed.

She must leave us to catch her train back to Cairo - she always has to take the least expensive option. She turns us over to a local guide, who brings us to a nice restaurant with a great vantage point above the city.

We have more hibiscus tea, some cakes – there is a little gray tiger kitty and accepts some salty bread sticks as a gift. We wished we had something better to give him. We watch sunset and take pictures of the Nile at the first cataract and Elephantine Island. It is very beautiful.

We were off to the night train where we have an unremarkble travel dinner served in heated foil packets in our compartment. We leave at 7 pm and eventually settle into our separate bunks – upper and lower. We sleep reasonably well on the scheduled 11-hour train and our thoughts are with Dalia sitting up in her 13-hour train making local stops along the way. Tomorrow it's Cairo.

more pictures from today are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/eloise.hedbor/20110125?authkey=Gv1sRgCILA_4nwg9vG2wE#

Nubia and Abu Simbel

We check out of the boat, meet at 9:30 to go to the assembly point. We are riding in a small Kia sedan with hilarious big dog headrests. But it is more comfortable by far than that 14 seat van!

We will leave at 11 am in a convoy of about 70 vehicles. This has been policy since about 2005 when some tourists either got lost or were kidnapped depending on the story. No stops allowed on 175 miles trip so no second cup of coffee and hope the Imodium works. (It did.)

The drive through the Nubian Desert reveals an apparently sterile environment with few interesting features. There are rocky outcroppings amid the sand, and as we get deeper into the desert, water mirages, even though there is not that much heat today.

There a few turnoffs toward the east and Lake Nasser where several Nubian temples have been relocated away from the Nile. There were also some remnants of some small Nubian pyramids.


With the exception of military training, the Egyptians today make little use made of this land.

When the high dam was built, tens of thousands of Nubians who had been living along the river were relocated into virtual reservations near Aswan. Their way of life changed forever.

Our drive takes nearly four hours. (It usually takes about three hours.) Convoys move at the speed of the slowest vehicle. We arrive at Abu Simbel about 3 pm and go directly to look at the famous temples.


Abu Simbel is a set of two temples near the border of Egypt with Sudan. It was built for the pharaoh Rameses II who reigned for 67 years during the 13th century BC (19th Dynasty). He wanted to impress Nubians, so size was more important than fine carving.


At Abu Simbel, Rameses II made a huge statement intended to intimidate the Nubians. The image of the colossal statues that stand at its façade are world famous. When you see these massive temples carved from the living sandstone rock, they are incredibly impressive and you are awed by the skill f the builders. But even more awesome is the fact this is NOT their original location.
When the high dam was built, UNESCO and an international team of some 40 engineers created an artificial mountain and cut the whole enormous temple out of its original location and relocated it higher to save it from the rising waters of Lake Nasser. Here's an image of that project


Originally carved out of the sandstone cliffs above the Nile, these temples were moved to higher ground to protect them from the rising waters of Lake Nasser because of the High Dam. The process of salvaging the Temples by moving them more than 600 feet away and more than 180 feet higher took about four years, starting in 1964.

Because they had originally been carved into living rock, the temple had to be cut into blocks, each weighing up to 30 tons. These temples are is not just the façades but two temples that extend more than 300 feet deep into the limestone cliff. To save these ancient monuments from the rising waters, workmen cut them into immense blocks, lifted the blocks and refitted them into the artificial mountain. They did this so skillfully that you cannot spot the cuts in the rock. Today the setting is different. Instead of overlooking the Nile, they overlook an enormous man-made lake, larger than Lake Champlain.

The four 60-foot tall high statues of Rameses stare towards any possible invader from the south, demonstrating the power the Nubians will face if they continue north. The six colossal statutes of him at the entrance are unusual because because they show Rameses through life, from a young man to maturity, although idealized in all cases. The second statute broke in an earthquake in antiquity, about 40 BC. Though all the pieces are there, the decision was made to leave it as it has been for the last 2,000 years.

As you enter, there is a long frieze of Rameses herding captive Nubians on the left, with the same scene but with captive Syrians on the right.

Nubian prisoners

Within the first chamber there is an entire wall, about 80 feet long and 35 feet tall, depicting in great detail in pictures and hieroglyphics the “official" version of Rameses II victory and personal heroism at the Battle of Kadesh against the Hittites. A more objective version of the story is that the young Pharaoh (under 25 years old) charged in his chariot headlong at the enemy, was separated from his troops, fought his way clear, was undoubtedly brave but also rash and fortunate to survive. Based on Hittite sources the battle was probably a draw.


Deeper in the temple there are series of very large 40 or 50 foot deep side chambers richly decorated with painted wall carvings, the colors still impressive. These are offering rooms, actually storerooms for tribute brought to the temple priests by the Nubians. The tribute collection is encouraged by annual punitive raids.


Famously in this temple Rameses the king is seen making offerings to Rameses the god in equal standing to of other gods, Ptah, Amon-Ra, and Ra-Horakhty. (Egyptians always liked their gods in trios.) In another relief very deep in the temple both Horus and Seth, the eternal opponents signifying good and evil, are both seen blessing Rameses.

Next to this temple is one dedicated to the Rameses' Great Wife, Nefertari, portrayed as the goddess Hathor, a patroness of love and music. This Temple was built by Ramses II to honor both Hathor as the goddess of love/music and his wife Nefertari as the deified queen. On each side of the entrance, two statues of Ramses flank one of Nefertari dressed as Hathor. The colossal statues, in turn, flank smaller statues of their children.

Nearly all the scenes within are of Hathor blessing Nefertari and of Nefertari making offerings to Hathor. As expected, Isis is featured with Hathor in some scenes. As Dalia says, they were “best friends” in the Egyptian pantheon.

Interior of the queen's temple

After seeing everything we can at the two temples, we head to our hotel, the Eskaleh Nubian House.

This is a very interesting place built of mud brick and domed vaulted ceilings. This combined with clever ventilation helps keep these buildings warm in the cold desert nights and cold during the heat of the day. We go out for a walk and watch the sunset over Lake Nasser.

We really enjoyed the distinctive food and wonderful recorded Nubian lute music. Our host invited Eloise to download a selection of the music on her flash drive which she did. Isn’t technology wonderful, even in Nubia?

Much of the food here is raised on the grounds - eggs and chilcken, and an assortment of vegetables from the gardens. Eloise had a delicious chicken Tajine, a very distinctive Nubian dish. Jim had fried tilapia fish, from the nearby Lake Nasser.

We went out and looked at the stars – Orion was straight overhead and Canopus was high in the sky to the south and very bright. We did not feel comfortable walking far from the hotel to get a better view of the sky but we did enjoy what we saw of the sky.

Our room was very comfortable and pleasant. We had mosquito nets which worked except for Jim’s hand which he let slip outside the netting and acquired about 30 bites on it. But we both slept very well in this delightful quiet place.

More pictures from today are here: https://picasaweb.google.com/eloise.hedbor/20110124?authkey=Gv1sRgCLi06vTi2qukngE#