We enjoyed the best nights sleep of the whole trip, having used earplugs to drown out the incessant traffic noises, hooting and dogs barking through the night. Though our room was quite high up it otherwise felt like we were right next to the street below. We checked out the breakfast, another "interesting" selection... We had sweet coconut soup with vermicelli noodles and barley (delicious), lentil soup (also good), potatoes (cold), aubergines and veg (nice), salad, pita bread and some really horrible processed meat in some kind of sauce... There was also fuul (beans) but we didn't try them after our last experience of them wasn't great!
At 10:00 we checked out and took a 5 minute bus trip to the river. Here, two feluccas were waiting for us, one was called "Moon Shado". We hopped onto the other one, with Hubert, Carol, Julie, Chris and Bert. The felucca had a large rectangular area in the middle, covered with comfy mattresses, and a low covering over it for sun protection. It has no motor and no electricity, just a big beautiful sail and a rudder for steering. Mohammed came with us and we all lounged on the mattresses and pillows as we set sail out of Aswan. We asked what our boat was called and we were told "Clinton".
The wind was very strong, whipping us along and as we got colder, we all put more and more layers of clothing on. The two feluccas were tacking back and forth across the Nile, narrowly missing each other and fighting the wind. Our crew of three expertly handled the sailing. The scenery gradually changed from urban to rural, and soon there were just palm trees, farmers, horses, cows and of course desert. We relaxed, read and wrote while the scenery slipped by.
After two hours we met up with the "mother boat" - a larger motorised boat which would act as our eating place, as well as providing toilets. We pulled up on a sand bank in the middle of the Nile with a bit of a crash, and hopped off to walk barefoot in the hot sand before queuing for the loo. The mother boat had an upstairs sun deck area laid out with tables and chairs for lunch. The meal was a rather unexciting cold platter of tuna, salad, pita, crushed potatoes and tahini. A full menu of drinks was available for those who wanted to pay for them.
After lunch we waited over an hour to see if the wind would die down. We sat on the hard wooden sun deck with our pillows trying to warm up but still being whipped by the incessant wind. Eventually we gave up, and went to collect our felucca which had gone out of the wind to wrap up its sails. The mother boat towed our felucca with us in it, and we towed the second felucca with its 7 people.
We snoozed and relaxed for another 2 hours or so as the scenery slipped by. Finally we reached our mooring point for the night - a floating pump station which enabled us to have free electricity. The feluccas are not allowed to travel at night, as they do not have lights and could be damaged by larger boats. We hopped onto the mother boat and watched as quite a few cruise ships passed by, each creating waves that rocked us back and forth. Some of the ships had people in their rooms, changing clothes with the lights on, completely unaware that we were parked on the side of the Nile... The occupants of the Moon Shado took their time arguing over where the bedding would be laid out and setting everything up while the Clinton bunch just relaxed and chatted.
We then headed up to the sun deck for dinner. This time we had a nicer warm meal of chicken broth with pasta, followed by grilled chicken, rice and mixed veg. Dessert was again fresh sweet orange segments. Some in the group were brave enough to try the Egyptian wine (120EGP per bottle). The fact that the label mentioned more about art than wine was not a good sign. It wasn't bad but the bottle never got finished.
We chatted for a while longer, Julian and Chris making us laugh with their jokes and stories, but eventually all turned in quite early, with a sunrise wake up call to look forward to. The felucca crew had surrounded the boat with cloth, to enclose us inside, and we all got thick blankets and slept in many layers. In the end, it was not too cold, and we all slept fairly well, with minimal snoring, and no car noises or hooting. The occasional train went by on the other side of the Nile, signaling its presence with its own horn...
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