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Nubian Village

Egypt

Entrance to the Nubian Village

Pet crocodile for the family we visited

We visited a Nubian Village for an optional excursion as part of Trafalgar's Best of Egypt tour. The tour consisted of a boat ride to and from the Nubian village with a Nubian guide who pointed out various exotic birds. The guide was quite knowledgeable about birds, and was able to identify each bird that we saw.

When we arrived at the Nubian village, he took us on a short walk through the village and gave us a very brief lecture on the history of the village. We arrived at a house where we were served mint tea. We were told that the tea was made from boiled bottled water, but I think the tea may have upset my stomach anyway (it's also possible that the tea had nothing to do with it).

The Nubian household allowed us to walk around their house and take pictures. They had a pet crocodile out front that was neat to see. The family had a 1-year-old girl that grabbed a stick and poked the crocodile - it was cute to watch. Apparently when the crocodile gets too big for the cage, they either kill it and put it on the wall, or release it back to the Nile.

The house was quite primitive, but also had a couple more modern features. The floors were made mostly of sand, although the bedrooms had cement floors. The roof was made of straw, although there were electric fans attached to it.

One of the inhabitants had some jewelry that he tried to sell us, but everyone had already been presented with the same jewelry many times before (everyone sells the same stuff), so nobody was interested in buying.

We walked through the village again on the way out, and were confronted with more people trying to sell things, but they were all relatively friendly and nice - unlike most of the other tourist sales people in Egypt.

Cost

Inside a Nubian home - notice the electric fans

We paid our tour guide $20 USD per person for this optional tour excursion. If you arrange a visit to the Nubian village on your own, you wouldn't need to pay anything, but you would not be able to just walk into someone's home.

Estimated Visiting Time

The Nubian kitchen

Since this was an organized excursion that was part of an organized tour, we didn't have any say over how long it lasted. We spent approximately one hour in the Nubian village. Including travel time, the entire excursion probably took between 2 and 2.5 hours.