Morning all. Sitting on the top deck of the ship waiting to disembark so I'll update you on what we were up to yesterday. By the way we're in Aswan now and the last two blog entries were uploaded (put onto the internet for the grannies) from here after the tour in the morning. Awan is the final stop on the NIle cruise due to a massive dam regulating the level of the Nile and providing electricity for the rest of the country.
Once again we were off bright and early in a van travelling up river to the dam. There's a look off spot to take photos (no video allowed though how they can tell when a digital camera is in video mode I have no idea) where there is the basic information about the dam. This is actually the second dam located here in Aswan, the first built during British occupation in Victorian times. The second is about three times the size and uses Russian engineering (having been refused assistance by the americans, the UN, the europeans...not sure if they asked Canada). Its an incredible structure (wide not high given the flatness of this flood plane) and holding back the largest man-made lake in the world. I wonder if they will have this claim once the chinese are finished with the Yangtzee. The hydroelectric output is 175,000 trillion mega-watts max. That's quite a bit. It services the entire country (for now) with the exception of Aswan which has its own facility. Their electric demands are mounting so there is a nuclear project underway.
Pretty much the entire Nubian society (which was located in the south of Egypt and is more african) had to be re-established elsewhere since its now underwater. We then were taken to a boat launch and motored to an island where another temple stood. This had also been moved due to the new level of the Nile to its current location. T
his was the most modern temple having Trajan and Hadrian elements to it which is getting to around 300 BC. I won't elaborate on the elements since they are similar to the temple Horas. Following this we returned to Aswan and went sailing on one of the Feluccas, very gracefull vessels constantly moving around the Nile. Its funny when you read the guide books where they are mentioned I kind expected to see one boat. Maybe. But there are tons of these things.
They really are the main method of transportation on the Nile. Very different from our boat at home it has a fairly short main mast very far forward in the boat (like a lazer or sunfish or pram). It's one sail is like a right-angled triangle (pythagorus?) with a very long mast on the verticle, a short boom on the horizontal and nothing on the hypotenuse. The sail is constructed from strips of cotton sewn vertically and this sail bascally rotates around the shorter main mast. Simple, brilliant and cool is how low-tech it is.
The lines made from hemp, pullies from wood, no traveller, a dagger board instead of a keel and it all functions above a big sunshade that pretty much covers the entire deck/cockpit. This sunshade also doubles as a platform when tieing up the sail and, if necessary, for crew if the boat is full of tourists. We are quite lucky travelling with just the three of us. We always have our own bus, boat, guide..... so we move about efficiently and can ask as many stupid questions as we want. In the afternoon instead of lying around on deck we wandered about, found the internet cafe, bought hyacienth leaves (you'll find out why) and strolled through the markets.
Facinating.
