Travel and leisure
Cruises
Experience the Nile
Only five hours from Gatwick, a Nile cruise offers today's tourist some welcome winter sunshine, the antiquities of ancient civilisations and the luxurious comforts of a modern cruise ship, writes Barbara Turner
Egypt is a land of contrasts, where centuries old traditional farming sits comfortably with modern agricultural techniques and arid landscapes border green fields.
Arriving at Luxor Airport just as the sun was setting, the evocative calls from the minarets introduced us to this mysterious land. Luxor town is a further example of extremes and was bustling with evening shoppers. As our coach negotiated its way through horse-drawn taxis and donkeys pulling carts laden with sugar cane, we peered down the side streets to see souks and bazaars selling pyramids of fruit, vegetables and spices.
A week's busy itinerary lay ahead of us during our cruise: the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, the site of Tutankhamen's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Edfu then on to the granite quarries in Aswan, where gigantic obelisks were carved before being taken down to Karnak. So after this whirlwind of visits, a trip to Kitchener's Island (or Gerizetan-Nabatat, the 'island of plants') offered a restful diversion.
For his work as Consul-General of Egypt, the island was presented to Lord Horatio Kitchener in the 1890s. With his love of gardening and beautiful flowers, Kitchener was to turn this plot of land in the middle of the Nile into a botanical paradise, importing many exotic plants from the Far East and India.
However, it was the events on the journey which made the excursion so memorable. The Nile swarms with boats of all shapes and sizes, from the multistoried cruise ships to ferries and highly-decorated motorboats. But the most beautiful of these is the triangular-sailed felucca. No trip to Egypt would be complete without a ride in one of these traditional lateen-rigged boats. Used originally for carrying local products along the Nile, today's cargo is the tourist.
For our particular trip there was only a light wind to fill the sails, so the crossing from the east bank was slow and peaceful. Our captain and crew were two tall, elegant Nubians who clambered sure, but barefooted about their work. Suddenly our forward motion ceased as we ran aground on a sand bank. Despite the crew's strenuous pushing with a pole we finally had to resort to a tow from a passing motor launch.
Meanwhile, from the Aswan side appeared the most intriguing sight – a boy aged nine or ten making steady progress, paddling towards us on an old blue door, his only paddles being squares of hardboard. With a captive audience he began to serenade us with Frere Jacques and an unusual version of Row, Row, Row the Boat… The felucca, once released from the sand bank, continued its journey but not before our young songster had collected a few Egyptian pounds and much applause for his efforts and business acumen.
Now free to explore the island we soon discovered myriad exotic plants such as poinsettias growing alongside cactus, avenues of palms, sycamore figs and cocoa nut trees which offered dappled shade to the many cats confined to the island.
Along the shore, white egrets, cranes and ducks foraged for food. Under the bougainvillaea by the cafeteria there were men, lost in the social habit of smoking their shisha, the single-stemmed water pipe like the hubbly-bubbly of the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.
Down at the wharf our felucca was waiting to make the return trip. The crew – one on board, the other knee-deep in the Nile with his brilliant white galabaiya firmly hitched between his teeth – were using the pole to make an improvised handrail to help those less sure-footed among us walk up the shaky gang plank. The gentle breeze absent on the outward trip now filled the sails and we were all too soon back at base.
Refreshed by mint tea and hot towels we settled down to a full day and night's cruising back to Luxor where we would later visit the temples of Luxor and Karnak and they, of course, are another story…
This article was published on June 16, 2009.
