Cruising down the Nile River

While cruising down the Nile, we saw sailboats along the shore. Also, there were locals going about their daily activities. In most places we noticed that the vegetation was right along the river. In some places it extended back for maybe a quarter of a mile, but most seemed to be much less. From there it was pure desert.

In some places we saw water lilies floating on the water.

We ate our meals in the ship's dining room. Here, Jim is eating some kind of Egyptian food as we are going through a "Lock and Dam" system. There was barely nough room for the ship to slide through and the walls were solid rock. You can see that the rock is almost right against the ship windows. If you look across the dining hall, you can see the rock against the other side of the ship as well.

On top of the ship was a large covered area. On the other end was a swimming pool and lounge chairs. This was a snapshot of the seating area at night.

More Egypt Pics

We took a trip to see the Alabaster Mosque. Moufid showed us the side of the podium which was made of very intricately carved wooden pieces. If even one small piece is removed, the entire side will fall apart!

Pam is standing in the copse where the leader would stand and speak. It is built so that the sound is magnified up and out across the entire floor.

This is the present day worship area. It is covered with carpeting and has alabaster columns.

Another highlight of Cairo was visiting the "Hanging Church" which sits on high rock walls on the outside. This was inside, looking at the pulpit. The ornate wood carvings were beautiful.

There were six columns on each side. Our guide showed us that all of them were carved the same at the top except one. They represented the twelve disciples and the different one was for the traitor Judas.

In the floor at the back was the place where they washed their feet.

After three days in Cairo and visiting the Pyramids and the Sphynx, we flew to Aswan to begin our cruise up the Nile River. Upon reaching Aswan we took a small boat to see the temple there. Bill and Pam posed for a pic on the boat.



Jim and Diana (a friend we met that was on the trip from New York) are resting while we made our way along the waterway to the temple.

These young men we so helpful to get us on and off the boat at Aswan.

As we got close to the site, we could see the temple with the massive walls and carvings.

As we walked up toward the temple, we could see the huge columns of the temple. This entire structure had been in another place, but it was going to be flooded, so the Egyptians took it apart piece, marked each piece and transferred it to this site. When we looked at it, it was hard to imagine that it had been dismantled and moved to this location.

While touring the inside, we found a little bird had built a nest inside a crevice and had baby birds there.