Gently Down the Nile

There’s something very special about cruising down the Nile on a white-sailed felucca. Jeremy Jowell survived Cairo, then took the slow boat to Edfu and met the Nubians....

The side mirror of the speeding mini bus smashed into the kind Egyptian showing me the way to the bus station.
Grimacing in pain and clutching a badly bruised shoulder, he let loose a stream of choice Arabic profanities. This was madness - another inch in the road and he’d have been history.
The bus driver screeched to a halt and rushed over to inspect the damage. This is all my fault, I thought. I mean I didn't really need to ask him directions. I could have found the damn terminal myself.
After some soothing words and a kiss on the cheek, all was forgiven. The driver cautiously patted the tender shoulder and sped off down the road.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “Yes, no problem, now we go to bus station,” he smiled weakly. Just another day in the craziness of Cairo.
But what do you expect, when there are sixteen million people, living in a melting pot of sounds and smells and cars and stress?
Cairo's chaos is on a par with the worst in the world. Right through the day, right through the city, streets are grid-locked. Down below my dingy hotel, horns were
constantly hooting and the incessant traffic jam inched around bustling Tahrir
Square. Nobody, it seems, walks like Egyptians anymore.

My first day in Egypt . Even though it was still early, the temperature was already pushing into the 30's. Mohammed Ali arrived promptly for what is the number one stop on any Egyptian traveller’s itinenary.
"You know, I live right in front of the pyramids," said Mohammed, as he guided his beat up taxi into the noisy early morning traffic jam. "I open my window and there they are every day. It's really a good view."
After passing over the Nile and through Gezira Island, we arrived at the outskirts of Cairo. In the distance the golden pyramids of Giza, Cheops and Kefren pierced the blue sky. Symbols of splendour, the stairways to heaven rose majestically above me.
Sammy the Camel Owner eased me onto Michael Jackson.
"It's the way that he dances in the desert," explained Sammy with a toothy grin. "And you see those donkeys over there? Well we call them Egyptian Cadillac's!"
Michael Jackson moonwalked me around the Sphinx and into the
dusty desert. The pyramids do strange things to people. Take the Grateful Dead. In 1984?????, Jerry Garcia and his band descended on the desert to fulfil their
vision of making music in the shadow of the pyramids. Their gig, fuelled by desert energy and an assortment of drugs, went on for three days. But granted, for the Dead, nothing was really too strange.
I returned that night for the sound and light show. A crescent moon was sinking as I gazed across to the three wonder structures. An ode to ancient civilisation. A legacy to a time gone by.

Poverty is everywhere in Cairo. Lying alongside one of the walls of the Egyptian Museum, a homeless woman and her two ragged children seemed to have given up the struggle. Their meagre possessions barely filled one brown bag. With an average wage of 140 Egyptian pounds (US$ 40) a month, it's a tough existence in Cairo. As a result, many Caireans resort to illegal scams for survival. One being the duty-free alcohol and tobacco scam.
Sayed and Mamdouh, with ten years experience in sweet talking to tourists, approached me confidently as I trudged along in the heat of Talat Harb Street.
"Mar habah.. where you from?", Sayed greeted me warmly. "Sous Afrika... aah, Nelson Mandela...good man! And Bafana Bafana, your soccer team, champions of Africa!"
Ten minutes later, having discussed the skills of “Shoes and Feeeesh”, we were speeding off in a taxi to the Nile Sheraton. All the major hotels in Cairo act as a duty-free oasis where tourists are permitted to purchase a quantity of alcohol and
cigarettes. Sayed explained the scam as weaved through the late afternoon
traffic.
"If I worked here legally, I would earn maybe 150 pounds a month. By doing this, I can make anywhere between 1 000 and 3 000 pounds. What we buy duty-free for $50, we sell to disco's, restaurants and rich Egyptians for a nice profit. We all have to put food on the table you know."
The staff at the Sheraton seemed to know them well. After greetings all round, Mamdouh slipped me a $100 bill and ushered me quickly into the duty free shop. In hushed tones, he whispered his order to the salesman who stamped my passport and dutifully handed me two bottles White Horse whiskey, three cartons American
Legends and a case of Heineken.
"Shukran, shukran, thank you for your help," they chorused, firmly refusing my photo request. "We cannot have our pictures taken. Too dangerous."

Caireans are very friendly, and business-minded, people. Walk along the city's crowded streets and you're besieged by verbal assaults that go something like this:
"Hallo... where you from?"
"You like Egypt? You seen the pyramids? Sakkhara? Luxor?"
Then the inevitable punchline.
"You wanna see my papyrus factory? Come, I show you Egyptian
hospitality."
Tourist trap aside, a papyrus factory is well worth a visit. An instructor takes you through the intricate steps involved in the 5 000-year-old art. But remember - after the demonstration, you're expected to spend.
Papyrus was the first form of paper man created. The inner part of the plant is cut into thin strips which are then hammered and rolled to extract the water content. The flexible product is immersed in pure water for six days, then sandwiched between sheets of cotton and put into a press machine for another six days. In the olden days, large rocks were used to create the necessary binding pressure. The rich Egyptian murals are painstakingly hand-painted to finish the process.
No visit to Cairo is complete without a visit to the great Khan El Khalili street bazaar. It seemed like the city’s millions had all crowded into the shuk. The humid air hung heavy with the scent of spices and sweat. The noise was deafening, as street vendors haggled their wares, selling everything under the sun. Mounds of frilly ladies underwear, spicy shish kebab, fruit and vegetables, leather goods, and gadgets. Rows and rows of vivid colours lined the jostling crowd as they pushed shoulder to shoulder down the narrow roads.
The noise rose to a fever pitch. In the midst of the chaos, hooting cars and desperate horses tried to force a path through the throbbing masses. Finally the market thinned and I sought the sanctuary of a mid city park - an oasis of calm in the Cairo confusion.
After three days, it was time to head out the city. One thousand kilometres due south to the fertile Nile Valley and the town of Aswan.

The sun began to set as we left the city sprawl behind and entered the great yellow Eastern Sahara desert. Ahead of me lay a bus ride from hell.
Two hours out, we passed through the bustling desert town of Suez, situated at the north tip of the Suez Canal. Strange looking salami's hung from road-side cafes and turbanned Arabs traipsed through the dusty town. Black-cloaked women peered furtively up at us. Scenes from some strange medieval time.
We continued our journey into the dark Arabian night. Mere metres away, the waters of the Suez Canal shimmered in the moonlight. Cairo's madness seemed a world away. But the bus ride soon began to take on fearsome proportions of its own.
What sounded like a badly wounded hyena jolted me wide awake. Scratchy high pitched sounds of Arabic music blared at me from the onboard television set. The irritating Englishman sleeping next to me dropped his head onto my shoulder. I knew I was in for a long night.
2.30am. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, evil-looking robed policemen stomped on board for a ticket check. As they left, the television started screaming again and the lights remained on. The entertainment was endless. “Weekend At Bernie's”, quickly followed by aTom & Jerry cartoon dubbed into Arabic and then a video on the facilities of our host, the Upper Egypt Bus Company.
4am. The big breasted hostess had obviously made it her mission to force feed me Twinkies sponge cake. Every half hour, like clockwork, she ranted away, proffering the packaged puke.Too tired to resist, I finally relented and nibbled the stale sickly bread. Sleep was no longer an option as the nightmare continued.
After 15 hours, a pack of Marlboro's and two bottles of Baraka water, we arived red-eyed in Aswan.

Life takes on a different pace in the hot humid Nile Valley. Although autumn was approaching, the mercury was still hitting the mid-40’s daily.
For masses of budget travellers venturing down south to do the felucca route, Aswan is first port of call.
A fleet of about 500 felucca’s, wooden sail boats with two large white sails, provide the perfect antidote to hard days on the road through Egypt. It takes three days to sail downstream to Edfu and all one can do is kick back and relax. Time is in the hands of your captain and the wind.
I had a few days to explore Aswan and it’s amazing Nile islands before my felucca set sail.
First a short sail over to Kitcheners Island and the tranquil botanical gardens. Then a hop to Elephantine Island, home to three Nubian villages with a population of almost 3 000. The Nubians live in small villages all along the Nile between Aswan and Luxor. After their three year army duty, most of the men return to work in the felucca industry, fish the Nile or farm the fertile land, growing lemons, mangos, bananas, guavas, dates and oranges.
I wandered around the alleyways, lost in a maze of colourful buildings. Friendly faces peeked out of doorways to greet me. Two small children led me by the hand around their village.
“Baksheesh, baksheesh,” they shyly asked after winning me over with their smiles.

When you felucca down the Nile, you leave all cares behind. Time simply evaporates under the white sails as the hours drift by.
A light breeze took the edge off the searing heat as we zig-zagged slowly down river. The banks of the Nile are fringed with scenery of Biblical proportions. Lush green fields filled with fruit trees - mangos, bananas, dates palms. Water buffalo and cattle grazed peacefully and past them rose the stark brown hills of the Sahara Desert.
Relaxation reached new heights. Eight weary travellers lay back on the mattressed deck and we let Captain Mohammed, our provider of everything, take charge.
“It’s a good job,” drawled Captain Mohammed lazily, as he leant on the Egyptian-coloured rudder. “Just steering, smoking and swimming... and meeting different people. Much better than Cairo,” he grinned.
Definitely better than Cairo. In November and December, Mohammed’s felucca trips can bring in up to 3 500 Egyptian pounds a month, 23 times the average wage in the capital.
The mid afternoon sun beat down hard. The only escape from the heat was the water so casting aside thoughts of bilharzia, I dived into the Nile and swam in lazy circles around our becalmed boat. Suddenly the wind picked up. We grabbed the trailing rope and the felucca towed us down the river as the sails stiffened.
Opulent cruise liners with their rich tourists stared down at us from another world. I wouldn’t have traded places with them for anything. This is the Nile - laid back luxury on the slow boat to Edfu where the stars are your ceiling and the boat’s your bed. Lazy hours flew by. Captain Mohammed softly sang an Egyptian love song as the sun was setting over the distant sand dunes. We beached our felucca on an island for the night. It had been a calm day, not much wind, and we were still some distance away from our intended stop of Kom Ombo.
Our captain’s other skills were soon apparent as he quickly prepared a delicious stew of onions, tomatoes, cucumber and baby potatoes, served with rice, pita bread, salad and feta cheese. Food always seems to taste better under a star-filled sky.
In the middle of the night, I awoke to find us gliding down the Nile. Our felucca had floated free of the island but Mohammed was soon awake and at the helm. Eerie Arabic voices in song drifted from a riverbank village where a late night wedding was in progress.
The next day we left the sugar cane and cornfields of Kom Ombo for Edfu.
“Today will be slow again, not much wind,” warned Mohammed. I sat in silent wonder as we glided past the rich river banks. Fragile naked children drowsily arrived for their morning bath in beauty; Two water buffalo bounded off the banks. Life seemed perfect as we drifted in the windless day.
There was no way we could make Edfu by nightfall. As the horizon tinged pink, we stopped at the tiny Nubian village of Saraj, where Captain Mohammed’s mother, sister and three brothers lived.
The Nubians of Saraj make the most of their fertile land. Healthy fields of tomatoes, onion, ochra, bananas, mango,aubergine, sugar cane, oranges, tangerine, chili and rhubarb are well tended and watered.
The Nubians have a knack for making a stranger feel welcome. Mohammed’s family greeted me with warm smiles and shining eyes, then indicated the cushion where I should sit to watch the soccer on their flickering black&white television.
Back on board the felucca, sleep was impossible. Either I closed my sleeping bag and drowned in a river of sweat or let in some air and sacrificed myself to the million mosquito’s whining angrily around my head.
I woke the next morning stinking and bitten. But it seemed the dirtier I got, the happier I was. Soon the service taxi would arrive to take me to Luxor but I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave the warm old men who welcomed me with sweets. Or the caring mothers who dried their babies tearful eyes. Reluctantly I turned my back to the Nile and walked to the dusty road. Mohammed was waiting... with my backpack and a farewell hug.