This extended story and review of the Viking Pharaohs and Pyramids cruise down the Nile in Egypt continues with the day spent in Esna and then an afternoon spent cruising upstream past Edfu and eventually docking in Aswan later that night. The initial article with an overview of the entire adventure can be found here.
So how does a morning begin on the cruise. On this day, a relatively leisurely breakfast to be ready for an 8am departure on our tour. But of course, there is always something to see outside the boat – the arrival of a vendor in his rowing boat hoping that someone wants to buy a scarf!
The choice this morning was between a walk through the village to the Esna Temple or a walk deeper into the village to see life in this ancient place. On the second tour, you walk past the Temple (which is set deep in the ground in the center of the village having been submerged in sand for hundreds of years) but then continue (with your armed guards) into other areas of the place. We did the Temple tour, but feedback on the village walk was also very good. Some people have seen enough temples by now, although this one is one of the best-preserved temples that you will be seeing on the cruise.
The evening entertainment was going to be the Taste of Egypt and then the Nubian show, and most people are planning to dress in appropriate local clothes, and so the first part of each tour is a stroll through the market that was directly opposite the ship. We are told that if you pay more than $15 you have paid too much, and prices did seem to be lower on the outward walk. We decided to ignore the traders on both outward and return and then we tagged along with another ship’s tour and did our negotiation as though we were on the outward leg. Not sure it made much of a difference, but we did get our two costumes for $30!
We took a slight detour on the way to the Temple to see the local tailor ironing his creations with a foot iron:
What was really impressive was how he could take a small drink of water and then spray it very finely from his lips onto the fabric to turn his iron into a steam version!
The temple is perhaps 15 minutes walk from the ship and was completely surrounded by more modern buildings. It is still being excavated, which does mean demolishing some of those adjacent buildings as originally the temple would have been in grounds as large as Dandara. Construction of this Temple of Khnum, the ram-headed creator god who fashioned humankind on his potter’s wheel, was begun by Ptolemy VI Philometor (180–45 BC). The Romans added the hypostyle hall which is the only part of the temple that is excavated and can be visited today, with well-preserved carvings from as late as the 3rd century AD. As such this is significantly different to the much earlier places we had visited on previous days of the cruise.
The floor of the temple is about 9m (10 feet) below the current surface of the town and had been filled with sand and other debris. Of course, people lived in there as well and so the walls and ceilings were black with smoke and grease but have now largely been restored back to their original colors. Work is still going on inside cleaning and restoring some of the walls.
Inside the temple is decorated still with hieroglyphs but with very ornate tops to the columns holding up the stone ceiling, which itself is highly decorated and painted.
And little details are everywhere – here is a bas-relief carving of a woman giving birth to a baby on one of the walls of the temple:
We had to be back on the boat ready for cast off at 10am but this still gave us plenty of time for that second trip across the road to buy our Egyptian clothing. I was happy with the basic nightshirt design, but my wife wanted something a little more special. You will have to wait to see the results!
The cruise upstream was accompanied by our friendly water-borne vendors hitching a lift on our boat so that they could sell to other boats heading down into Esna:
But that didn’t stop them offering a special price on their wares as they sped up the river. You need to beware of looking at all interested as a folded scarf will be landing at your feet!
There was plenty of choice of new ships to sell to as we started our journey upstream and our vendors had no trouble finding a new home for the return journey.
The rest of the day was spent cruising up the river. There are, of course, some activities such as learning to make Falafel and visiting the bridge of the ship, but there so seem to be things happening all along the way:
And finally, it was time to try on our Egyptian clothing and make our way to the special dinner in the restaurant celebrating Egyptian food and the performance by the Nubian Dancers who had enough enthusiasm to get everyone involved in the dancing!
