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Trafalgar Tour - Best of Egypt

Day 6 - Philae Temple, Unfinished Obelisk, and more!

Egypt

Philae temple from the small shuttle boat

Our group took a felucca to sail to Kitchener's Island

A whirling dirvish show on the boat

A belly dancer show on the boat

Our wake up call came at 6:00am this morning. We were tired, and discovered that everyone else in our group was also tired when we all arrived to breakfast late.

At 7:00am, we boarded the bus and went to visit the Aswan High Dam. Our tour guide gave us some history of the dam on the bus drive over. I was disappointed with it - there was hardly any information at all at the dam, and there was really nothing to see there. It wasn't nearly as thorough a tour as The Hoover Dam. We only spent about 10-15 minutes at the dam.

The bus took us to a dock, where we boarded a motor boat to sail to Philae Temple. The Philae Temple was unique - it was located on an island, and was moved to a different island when the Aswan High Dam was built. The island had some nice vegetation on it, and provided an excellent view of the surrounding area. It was the only temple we visited on an island, and the scenery was a very nice touch.

As usual, our tour guide gave us a short narration about the temple, and took us on a short walk through the area, and then gave us some free time to look around and take pictures.

After taking a motor boat back to the mainland, we boarded our bus, and went to a local perfumery. The shop gave us a little lesson on different oils, and put some samples on our finger tips. I think it took a couple days before my fingers smelled normal again! After the little aromatherapy lesson (and a chance to make some purchases), we again boarded the bus.

The bus took us to The Unfinished Obelisk. It was a very neat site - you could clearly see that the Egyptians knew what they were doing when they carved out obelisks from the bedrock! We had some free time there to walk around. There was also a small bazaar area where vendors were aggressively trying to sell souvenirs to tourists. At 11:10am, we again boarded the bus and went back to the boat.

We had free time until 12:30p, when we had lunch. We had some free time after lunch, also. At 2:00pm, we met our group in the lobby of the boat to meet our Nubian guide for the afternoon. He led us to a small dock next to the boat, where we took a felucca ride to The Botanical Gardens on Kitchener's Island. They were a beautiful sight! Unfortunately, our Nubian guide didn't give us any type of tour on the island - he just spent the time talking on his cell phone. We had 30 minutes to look around the island, and were told to meet at the opposite end of the island.

This was the time when our group split in two. There were some group members who chose not to pay the optional $20 to visit the Nubian Village, and they were taken back to the ship by felucca. Everyone else boarded a motor boat with our Nubian guide to visit the Nubian Village.

On the way, our Nubian guide pointed out a number of birds that were indigenous to the area. The motor boat took us through the first cataract of the Nile, next to the Sahara Desert. The Nubian village was very neat to see, and well worth the $20 fee. The entire tour lasted approximately two hours, including transportation time.

The motor boat and our Nubian guide returned us to the ship at approximately 5:15pm. We gave him the recommended tip, although I was disappointed he didn't give us a tour of the botanical gardens. We had a bit of time before dinner, so we daringly crossed the busy street to the internet cafe. We paid 10 LE for 30 minutes of internet access.

The dinner on the ship was the usual buffet food - I was getting bored of it by this point. After dinner, at 9:00pm, there was an after dinner show in the lounge on the main floor. The show included a whirling dirvish, and a belly dancer. The belly dancer was not very experienced, but the whirling dirvish show was neat to see. We couldn't believe how long he spun for without falling over! The show ended around 11:00pm.