Right, so we’d made it from Sharm El-Shiekh to Aswan in only two days of travel, with one weird police/bureaucracy experience. Aswan itself promised some sights, like the Philae temples, the High Dam, the Temple of the Nobles, and so on. And we even had a car to take us around, which seemed like a smart choice.
Our taxi – a nice air-conditioned minibus – picked us up at the hotel and we headed off to see the four sights we had identified as being priorities. First up was the unfinished obelisk, which sounded a little lame, but hey, who doesn’t like obelisks? From the hotel it was only about a 15 minute drive to the site, where we saw some pretty cool stuff and learned about Aswan.
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Here’s what you need to know about Aswan: as an obvious foreigner, you rate above cockroaches but below goats on the social pecking order. You are there to spend money, and any human interaction that seems more cordial or social is just part of some sales pitch or other demand for money. Balk at anyone’s demands and you’ll be met with the same mixture of irritation and incredulity that a shepherd might display towards a an animal that started doing its own thing.
Anna had mentioned that our guidebook said that the Nile valley was an exercise in tipping, and that anyone who so much as held the door for you would want money. It seemed like a bit of an exaggeration, but let’s be clear: it’s an understatement. After paying US$7 or so for entry to the unfinished obelisk park, we were led to a theater to see a digital rip of a VHS copy of a National Geographic special about the obelisk. And you know what? It was pretty good. Lots of interesting info about how obelisks were made, and how they were shipped from quarries near Aswan to their eventual destinations in Karnak and the rest of Egypt.
And, of course, as we let the theatre… there’s the guy who started the movie, standing literally with his hand out, waiting for his tip. For starting the movie. Yeah. This was how Aswan was going to be.
We wandered around the obelisk park and saw some cool stuff, before I got too close to an amateur guide who showed me a well, then led the rest of us around a bit, before demanding his tip (our initial tip of E$10 wasn’t enough, apparently, so he got E$20). There’s probably more to be said here, but I was a little grumpy, especially when the exit of the park dropped us in a row of very aggressive vendors’ stalls. Lars succumbed to the promise of a E$2 robe (actual price, once bought: E$100), while Luke, Anna, and I fled for the exits and the safety of our taxi.
From there it was on to the Philae temples, a remarkable bit of ancient Egypt located on an island near Aswan. When we arrived at the park and paid our US$10 for park entrance, there was a sign indicating “Entry price does not includ boat price”, which we figured was OK because our guidebook said boats to the island cost E$5. Apparently that’s not true in the low season, because we ended up paying E$25, or US$5, per person for the boat. Whatever, $15 is no big deal, and I’d have cheerfully paid it to enter the park and ride the boat. The irritating part, to me, is the constant “oh, yeah, you paid for *that* part, but now you have to pay for *this* part.” This would be a theme throughout Aswan.
Anyways, we did eventually make it to the island, and the ruins are truly impressive. The pictures speak for themselves, really. Or at least the pictures of the ruins do. They’re huge, imposing, and ancient. And its hard not to be moved. Especially by all of the amateur guides who insist on moving you, for a small fee of course.
It was at around this point that my Aswan experience hit its nadir. After our strange police experience in Hurghada, I was a little skeptical of the integrity of the Egyptian police. But in Philae, well. I had the pleasure of having an in-uniform Tourist Police, prominently toting an automatic weapon, take my camera out of my hands and proceed to photo direct me, posing me in several spots before I tired of the game. Of course, this heavily armed man, now in possession of my camera, wanted a tip for taking my picture. I paid. Grumpily.
We wandered around a bit more, but the place was kind of depressing. It’s an odd experience to see such staggering ancient monuments juxtaposed against such venal and sleazy modern inhabitants. It’s a constant experience of “wow, look at that! Oh crap, here comes another ‘guide’… run!”
From Philae, we headed to the High Dam which, like most marvels of engineering, is more impressive conceptually than aesthetically. It’s a big dam. A damned big dam, if you’ll forgive me. With some great views, and with, true to Egyptian form, some utterly irrational security. Not irrational in the T.S.A. sense of security theater designed to make people feel safer, but irrational in the sense of utterly crazy. There was a single small hut with an x-ray machine and metal detector, and there was no separation between exit and entrance. Yeah, you can stand outside with your backpack while your friends go through, then hand them your unscreened backpack and go through yourself. And that’s how it’s designed to work. It’s pointless and more than a little insane.
Anyways, big dam, nice engineering, not a lot to look at. Some amusing signs, like “Aswan Dams Authority”, which is good for at least a few juvenile chuckles. And then it was back into the taxi for the very very short ride to another site, a collection of ancient temples relocated to higher ground when the dam was built in the early 60’s.
Here, we had the good fortune of being the only tourists on the island, and the amateur guide who would demand tips was nicely asleep in an alcove when we arrived. We wandered a bit and had a fairly good ancient temple experience before Anna and I carelessly woke the guide who insisted on taking us up some stairs to the roof of the temple. Again, something worth seeing and that we would have paid for as part of our entrance, but the whole guide/beggar/scammer dynamic was getting old.
And then, thankfully, it was back to the hotel. We were all a bit exhausted after the morning of taxis and monuments and paying E$5 for every interaction. We got back to the hotel around 1pm and decided that we’d had enough of Aswan’s torustic charms. Plus Anna wasn’t feeling well. So Luke and Lars and I headed out for lunch and to cruise around the shops while Anna rested.
We guys hit a fairly limited “restaurant” (menu: hookahs, coffee, mangos), and then kept on until we found a tasty kabob place for a proper lunch. Probably my best kabob so far, and there really have been several good ones. And the whole atmosphere of having waiters come over to take our order without expecting to be paid was really very nice. We headed back through the shops on the way home and experienced more Aswanian hospitality, which basically consists of very aggressive shopkeepers, very aggressive taxi drivers (no, we are walking two blocks, we do not need a taxi no matter how cheap), and very aggressive Felucca captains.
Wait, Felucca captains? We needed a Felucca. Despite having been trained to wave people off and say “la” (“no”) until they gave up, we actually talked to a putative Felucca captain on the street and decided to give him a shot. To make an already-too-long story short, we negotiated a price and had him and his buddy give us a ride across the Nile in his boat so we could see that he did, in fact, know what he was doing. And, perhaps surprisingly, he did. So we made arrangements for a ride from Aswan to Edfu for the next two days.
When we headed back to the hotel, we decided to do the cheesy Western thing, just as Anna and I had done in Amman: we’d hit the Movenpick, a Swiss hotel with a truly obnoxious control tower / restaurant that dominates the western view from Aswan, and spend too much money for familiar Western drinks, air conditioning, and peace from the constant demands from vendors. The drinks were expensive, by Egyptian standards, but the view was gorgeous and the respite was much needed. We ended the day by heading back to the hotel by way of a very tasty kabob place in the souk, and then called it an early night, looking forward to tomorrow when we’d get away from Aswan, which we none of us really liked, despite the incredible historic and cultural value.
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Gah! I hear you on the walking dollar sign syndrome that seems to be so pervasive throughout touristy areas in any part of the world. I found it particularly offensive in Luxor, and was happy to escape from there. I didn’t have enough time in Aswan to have the same experience you did, but that’s because Heater and I were walking around half dead from our marathon trip from Dahab to Abu Simbal and then to Luxor all within 24 hours. Yikes! Glad to hear you had a delightful time on the Felucca ride. That was my favorite part about Aswan! I’ve been loving reading about your Egyptian adventures, thanks for being so faithful to posting!