Egypt – so long souk-ers!!

Sunday 26th October

Tomorrow we’re all set to catch the ferry from Aswan to Wadi Halfa, so it seems appropriate to look back over the last 4 weeks, and consider our time in Egypt.  It really has been a parson’s egg; for every thieving, conniving weasel who has tried to rip us off,

we have found someone else who has been kind, generous, and has gone out of their way to help us for no reward.  In Aswan and Luxor the continual, relentless ‘hello, where you from? come look in my shop, no hassle, just look no buy’  has made it really hard to relax and enjoy being here. The sad thing is that if you’re not continually cynical, the majority of Egyptians you encounter along the tourist trail will try and stiff you in some way or other.

There have been lots of good bits, and the sheer joy of realising that someone is helping you just because because they can has outweighed the disappointments.  I also think that my reluctance to unconditionally love Egypt is partially due to the fact that we have been here for a long time, nearly a month, and it’s easy to forget that we’ve spent a lot of time and effort crossing off most of the grotty admin jobs ahead of us such as visas etc.   

So a big thanks to the owner and staff of the Keylany Hotel here in Aswan who spend about 3 hours of their own time fixing an odd glitch with my laptop, and to Wael, who helped us out with the Nile Navigation Company, just because he could.

For those of you that are interested Sean & I marked our 12th un-niversary today!  Sean sneakily arranged a sunset Felluca trip, and a surprise bottle of red, both of which were very relaxing!  We’re both a bit amazed and delighted that we’ve made it this far, literally and metaphorically.

Tomorrow is another day and we’re really excited about the next phase of our Big African Adventure, Sudan is about as far off the beaten track as we’ve ever been and will mark a return to wild camping and exciting road surfaces.  We’ll be off radar until we reach Khartoum in about a week. 

In the meantime, a bit like the BBC test card, some random sights that have amused us:

No crunking in your pants perhaps?

And my kind of shop