One of the joys of river cruising is the people you meet and the attitudes you experience. It is no surprise that the Germans and the English do not play well together even after all this time. It was a surprise therefore that the Thomas Cook cruise was a 40 60 split between the two nations. This generated many comments around our English-only dinner table guests but I had to put this shot up as this German bloke was obviously equally committed both to his exercise regime, the stationary exercise bike, and his well lit pipe.
The tours of the morning were well organised and the lunch on our return to the moored boat gave recovery time for our evening optional tour of Aswan city.
First up on the tour was a visit to a newish mosque in downtown Aswan. Nothing special really but the tour included a half hour lecture on the Muslim faith. This little surprise was well shielded from the itinerary tour description and focused heavily on attitude to women and the right to defend the faith. Hmmm.
Next was a tour through a mainly tourist targeted souk where we were shown into a spice shop, given a brief sales pitch and Gail bought some very well priced saffron, vanilla beans, and hot peppercorn. Given the cost of Saffron we are considering starting an export business in fine Iranian Saffron. we bought 25 grams for less than they sell one gram in the UK.
The rest of the night was spent wandering through the souk looking at things and trying to convince every person we didn't want to buy their stuff. Having said that we did buy three "genuine camel leather" plastic belts for about two quid. I'd like to say we were ripped off but as Gail pointed out, 2 quid for the belts?
The souk also provided goods for the local residents as well as tack for tourists and we investigated electronics shops and this pickled fish shop to get a sense of the alternate products available.
The end of the city tour included a coffee and a smoke of the shisha pipe. Light was bad and the camera failed to capture the event but Gail speaks of a lovely apple fragranced water pipe experience and I recall some rather ordinary coffee but a fair bit of laughing and carry on.
We returned for the evening meal on the boat to be welcomed by a goat on the bed and then there was a planned entertainment night. The event this night was a Nubian Show. A misnomer surely but the dancers were committed to providing a good show and the "chief"who tried to teach and control a selected team of tourists generated some genuinly funny moments especially given the unexpected comedy performances from some of our fellow travellers.
All things considered this was a rather enjoyable day.
