Wednesday 15th

 For some reason our boat and the other cruising craft spent the better part of Tuesday evening anchored a few Km north of the first set of locks on the river. They didn’t actually enter the locks until 3 or 4 am when almost everyone was sleeping. So we missed one of the potential highlights of sailing the Nile. I woke at 6 :30, just missing the sunrise.

Our boat arrived in the town of Edfu around 8 am  where we would anchor on its West Bank while we visited the nearby Temple of Horus. The trip to the site was taken by horse and carriage, each couple in their own with a driver and single horse. The route through town was a busy and very pot holed road with heavy traffic, including trucks and buses flying by at varying speeds. The various carriages were driven rather quickly. Such that we had to ask the driver to slow down to avoid getting bounced around. One couple’s carriage actually lost a wheel but luckily no injury were sustained. Arriving at the Temple we alighted at a large parking area where literally hundreds of these carriages were picking up and dropping passengers- clearly a make work project for the locals, employing many more people than a taxi service would require. 

Walking through a gauntlet of several dozen vendors eager to sell their “ genuine fake replicas, t shirts, guide books etc. we arrived at the entrance, passing our bags through a security scanner while lazy guards ignored the alert beeps of the machine.

 Entering the temple grounds, our first view was a massive front wall that appeared to be  symmetrical in appearance, with the left side perfectly mirroring the right. Entering through the central doorway we encountered a large courtyard surrounded by several round pillars, the tops of which showed that the original columns built by the Egyptians had been modified with floral designs first made by Greeks and later Romans. The courtyard led to an inner sanctum where a shrine to the God Horus originally existed, now replaced my a modern replica. Like most of the other temples, the columns bore the intricate designs and paintings of various mythological scenes that we had observed at other temples.

Returning to our boat by a slightly different potholed road, our rider constantly asked for tips while we bounced along. Arriving at our stop we tripped him and offered a couple of apples to his horse, clearly a treat as it ate them voraciously. As we walked towards our boat, several children and vendors competed for our attention in the hopes of securing a small sale or a handout.

Once everyone was on board, our vessel continued it’s journey south to our next stop.

 It was almost sunset when our boat docked at the town of Kom Ombo for a visit to the twin temples of Haroeris and Sobek. The temple featured a number of detailed carvings related to medicine and worship but the failing light and the poorly placed spotlights along with large crowds made viewing them difficult.

Additional features of the site were a “Nileometer” - a well like device for measuring the depth of the adjacent river and a Crocodile museum with several mummified remains

A minor panic ensued when we returned to find our boat missing from its mooring. Fearing that they had taken off without us. We were relieved to find it had relocated to a spot some 500 meters along the wharf. Unfortunately they hadn’t given any thought to leaving a crew member to redirect “traffic”

Once everyone was on board we set off upstream for our final stop at Aswan, arriving quite late after everyone was asleep.