Expedition Team: Jacque Miller, Dave Miller
Date: March 23-24, 2009
After the 13 hour overnight train ride from Cairo, we stayed two nights at the Isis Hotel directly on the Nile River. Aswan is Egypt’s sunniest, southern city averaging 85-90 degrees in the winter and unbearable in the summer.
We crossed the Nile on a small ferry boat to the west bank and rode camels for 90 minutes out into the desert to see the Mausoleum of Aga Khan III (Photo #2 & #3) and the Monestery of St. Simeonen (Photo #4 & #5). The monastery dates back to 600AD. I ended up getting a butt burn due to the bouncing and rubbing against my camel’s hump during the long ride. That was embarrassing.
We then visited the Aswan Botanical Gardens on Kitchener Island home to hundreds of desert and local flowers and shrubs. Jacque posed for a photo shoot (Photo #6) with the Nile River as a backdrop. In downtown Aswan’s bazaar area near the Ferial Gardens and Nubian Museum, I met Omar the Tentmaker (Photo #7), who made a few dresses for my overweight high school girlfriends.
That evening we rode in the back of a pick-up to a local Nubian village on the west bank of the Nile River. A Nubian family cooked our group a typical Nubian dinner (Photo #8 & #9) and provided music and dancing afterwards. It was tradition to sit on the floor cross-legged and eat – no kitchen table.
