Woke up quite early today to have breakfast at 7pm and then it's time for our felucca ride! Felucca is a traditional wooden sailing boat commonly found in Nile River. For about 40 of us, we occupied 2 feluccas, each operated by a Nubian sailor. The ride took about 1 hour, going back and forth around where the cruise ship docked. The wind was quite strong, but the ride's smooth and enjoyable. It's calming and more definitely more pleasant than riding a motorboat.
We were busy taking photos during the first half of the ride, and on the second half they made us sing, clap and dance along with the sailors - a Nubian song which meant "Welcome". And they also took the opportunity to display some handmade jewelries and wooden toys in the middle of the boat. At LE15 each, only 1 necklace and a wooden snake were sold.
After the felucca ride we went back to the cruise ship and the cruise started. We had our free time and spent it by reading novels at the sun deck while munching chips, soaking in the charming Nile vista.
Around noon the ship reached Kom Ombo. According to our guide, Kom Ombo used to have about 50 gold mines which were now empty. The area was now famous for sugar cane and eggplants. We visited the Sobek temple, listened to the explanations on some stone carvings like how the ancient people recorded their offerings to the gods, their depictions of medical instruments, their hieroglyphic symbols, images of gods, etc. There was a small pond made of stone, apparently it was something like bathing pool for Queen Cleopatra, used to be filled with milk. She liked to fly to Kom Ombo to escape the cold months.
The ship set sail again at 1.40pm while we were having our lunch aboard. It was another round of international buffet with cream soup, pasta, stewed beef, chicken with onion, creamy fish, buttered rice, salad, bread and dessert. There was a simple tea break at 4pm at the sundeck.
At 5.30pm the ship reached Edfu where we went down to visit Edfu temple, the only temple we visited during night time. It gave different feeling, with the gigantic walls, statues and columns. The temple was dedicated to God Horus, god of falcon. There were 2 falcon statues guiding both the outer and inner entrance of the temple. The temple facade was 40m high, and the walls were still intact, except for some carvings that were destroyed by the Christian refugees. It was found covered in sand caused by sand storm which occurred every April in Egypt.
After dinner on the cruise ship there was Galabeia party at the ship's lounge. According to those who went, they had fun by playing some ice breaker games and did some dancing. Too bad, we were to lazy to go out from our cozy cabin. So we lazed around and then forced ourselves to brave the chilling wind at the sun deck at about midnight when the ship passed by The Lock of Esna.
A lock is built as a way for ships to navigate between rivers of different water levels. It contains a chamber whose water level can be adjusted. For our ship that travelled from Aswan to Luxor, the water level was lowered down. My estimation was about 5-6 meters lower. So the ship went into the chamber, gates were closed, water was drained from the chamber by opening a valve, the exit gate opened and the ship sailed out to the lower canal. It's quite interesting.
The ship reached Luxor very early in the morning.
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