Egypt Part Deux - Luxor & Aswan

On our last night in Luxor, we were all invited to attend an Islamic Egyptian wedding by a guy called Mohamed who Podge met in a garage. Supposedly it’s an honour to have a foreigner at your wedding over here, so they got three for the price of one.

He picked us up about nine and drove us to a large building across town that’s used just for weddings. It was the ending ceremony on the second day of the wedding. Out of about 1000 people, Podge and I were the only two guys in shorts, and surprisingly, only a few people stared at us. We did wear shirts too though... Well, Podge wore a shirt; I wore a pajamas top, as I didn’t have one... Classy!

The bride and groom called Hamada and Shareen pulled up in a jeep with a load of bridesmaids all dressed in really bright colours. They held a framed picture of the bride and groom up behind them as they walked in. It was only taken a few minutes before hand which seemed a bit odd?

Anyway, the place was mental outside with fireworks and lads flying up and down the road on motorbikes and on the roofs of minibuses cheering and shouting, complete mayhem.

The happy couple danced with only women around them. Mohamed brought us up beside them and shoved Janer into the middle of it, so she had a little bop with the bride... it’d be rude not to. Then after the couple were seated on the stage in a big fancy couch, Mohamed brought us up immediately and we were the first to shake their hands and say Mabrook (congratulations in Arabic).

Next morning we packed up the jeep, including 2 crates of beer, and headed down to Aswan through the Western Sahara. You see the strangest things in the desert; possible relations of Turkish Kelly on their way to guard some Aswan brothels...

When we arrived in Aswan, we checked into the Hathor hotel right on the Nile. It had a pool right on the roof, so we headed straight up for a few cans, met three bang on Canadians, Todd, Jackie and Jill up there and ended up putting a serious dent in our Sudan supply of beer. Unbelievably, it was only our third night on the sauce since leaving Ireland.

After a late night, we got up the next morning and headed with Todd and Jackie to The Great Temple of Abu Simbel (3 hours drive away going 120 km/h). On our way there we were stopped at a police checkpoint just outside Aswan and told we couldn’t continue unless we travelled in an armed convoy. Supposedly, there’s a risk of armed rebels out in the desert that shoot at the cars that pass through. Anyway, we had to go back to the town, register with the police and wait until 11.30 for the convoy to leave.

After about 2 hours of driving across the desert in convoy, we had to pull over and throw a jerry can into the tank because the light had been on for about 50 km. While we were stopped, a tour bus going by also stopped and a police man hopped out with his machine gun looking none too pleased to tell us we weren’t allowed to stop. So we jumped back in and continued post haste.

At the Temple of Abu Simbel, there were 20 m high statues of Ramses II and some smaller ones of his wife Nefertari. Look at him, he's bleedin' massive!

Inside the temple, there were huge carvings in the walls and loads of small chambers covered in drawings and hieroglyphics. No cameras allowed inside the temple, so don't tell anyone I took this....

...especially not this lad...


Just beside The Temple of Abu Simbel was The Temple of Hathor. A bit smaller, but still pretty impressive.

According to the ever knowing Lonely Planet, these temples were dismantled and winched to higher ground in the 1960s so they weren’t covered by the rising Lake Nasser. As good as they were, it was a hell of a long way to go for just an hour and a half as we had to return with the convoy immediately afterward.

As luck would have it, on our way back to Aswan, the jeep ran out of fuel again. We were told at the police checkpoint there was a petrol station 15 min outside Abu Simbel, so we thought we’d fill up there rather than get the two full jerrycans out which can be a bit of a hassle. As usual, our information from the police was complete bull. After about 100 km, no sign of any station, the tank ran out of fuel and we had to pull over and lash in the remaining 2 jerry cans. The bus ahead of us came back when they realised we weren’t behind them and again, even though we told them we ran out of fuel, we were still told we couldn't stop. However, this time it was by some pissy little arsehole of a Spanish tour guide and about 50 pissed off Spanish tourists. The policeman on their bus was pretty sound though, didn’t even get out.

So, we spent the past couple of days sorting out the jeep to get it onto the barge for Sudan. Very very complicated procedure. However, Dave our South African friend has been extremely helpful in getting us through all the paperwork and red tape. It's meant to be complete mayhem...

Hopefully, all things going well on Monday morning, we'll get a police escort to the harbour then our jeep, 4 S.African jeeps, 3 Dutch jeeps, 1 German motorbike and 6 Australian motorbikes should all be out of here and on the way down the Nile to Wadi Halfa in Sudan. We have to go on a separate passenger ferry that gets there 2 days before the cars.!

Before I go, I have some awesome news. I'm sure everyone will be delighted to hear I finally managed to get my old flippy floppies which broke in Syria fixed. Two strips of leather, a bit of thread and a few well placed nails... absolutely amazing. Oh, there was also a cobbler involved too. I could hardly do it myself now!