A seven hour time zone difference can mess with your sleep patterns. Even worse? A 2:15 am wake-up call. Basically that meant we were getting up the second day in Cairo at 7:15 pm Eastern US time.
We had to be down for the bus to the airport at 3:15 am to catch our 6:15 am flight to Aswan. Getting through the airport was not that difficult. After landing, there was general consternation as one unfortunate member of the tour had her luggage NOT make the trip to Aswan. The story has a happy ending, as her bag made it to the ship for the Lake Nasser cruise around 11:15 pm last night, after catching a later flight.
We still had a three hour bus ride from Aswan to Abu Simbel. And the drive was pure Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome. Driving through the dystopian Sahara desert was unreal. Flat, sandy, with miles of nothing. The bus was passing all sorts of vehicles, including trucks with multiple passengers in the truck bed, tuk-tuks, motorbikes pulling trailers with large bundles of stuff. Fortunately, none of the trucks had mounted guns that shot fire.
The hills were like nothing I’ve ever seen – individual carved out of the wind, with some looking like natural pyramids.
About halfway there we stop at dystopian rest stop for coffee, tea, and a bathroom break. It was a makeshift “building” with a literal mirage across the street, looking like a sizable body of water. It was a very cool stop, as we were surrounded by the desert.
The rest of trip was uneventful, but memorable. We passed by new farms irrigated by Lake Nassar with green fields of wheat growing. A small town built by the government to attract more people to farm, but the town is all but barren.
No comments:
Post a Comment