Our goal for Aswan was primarily to get our visas for Sudan. We expected this to take 2 or 3 days, given the limited opening hours of the Sudanese Consulate here. Spoiler: that was 10 days ago, and we are still here.
We went to the consulate on the first morning, but despite it being well within the hours posted on the front doors, we were surprised to find them barred shut. Some officers nearby were clearly uncomfortable with our loitering, and told us that the consulate was closed for Eid. But we’d timed our arrival to get here after Eid! Well, the Eid holiday was over in Cairo, but we learned from locals that in Aswan it lasts 5 days instead of 2 or 3. Sure enough, it was closed the next day too. I even tried on the 3rd day, Wednesday, even though the visa section is normally closed that day. No problem, we’d come back on Thursday.
On Thursday, they took Dave’s and my papers to start the visa process, but after a few hours returned mine with apologies. Apparently, for American passport holders, special permission is now required from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. This never came up in our research, and we were devastated.
Our sponsor in Sudan, George from the Acropole hotel in Khartoum, gave us some hope that they could send someone to the Foreign Ministry to facilitate and expedite this authorization process. Our hands were tied — all we could do was research, but other than a reference to some local “fixers” in Wadi Halfa, we didn’t find anything helpful. George said they could maybe get it done by Sunday.
So, with nothing more productive to do, we started exploring Aswan.
First problem: finding things. It seems like half the landmarks in Aswan had an incorrect location in Google Maps, most pointing at a giant mosque on a hill.
We’ve become very familiar with getting around Aswan, its dusty streets and noisy touts. We’re even on friendly terms with some of them, like the sweet Papyrus guy (“Why does no one care for my papyrus?”). Almost nothing is open during the day, but the city comes to life around sunset.
Sometimes there are sidewalks, but often you have to walk in the street to get anywhere. Cars usually honk before they pass close, especially the tourist cabs that want to fleece you into paying 10 times the fair rate for a short drive. It’s actually easy to walk everywhere, if you don’t mind the 46°C (115°F) heat.
If you walk along the Nile, you WILL be accosted by touts trying to get you into a felucca. These are almost definitely going to be rip-off prices. But the helpful gentleman who runs our guesthouse arranged for us a few hours in a felucca at a much more reasonable rate. We were joined by a nice Belgian guy and made our way to the pier. Oops, no pier — you just jump a railing, inch along a ledge, and climb across another boat.
Our guide solo-skippered the boat entirely under sail (ie, no engine) up and down this short stretch of the Nile.
Ancient history is everywhere. Civilization in this region isn’t just hundreds of years old, but thousands. Sometimes you’d see hieroglyphic “graffiti” in the craziest places.
We stopped at a botanical gardens on a small island in the middle of the river. The gardens themselves boasted trees and bushes from all over the world. I’m not much of a botanist, but even I could appreciate the diversity of plant and tree life crammed into such a small place.
I wasn’t the only one blown away by the island. Dave even made a special friend.
Back on the river, we sailed around up and down around Aswan for another hour. There wasn’t much wind but the feluccas made good work of it.
All the feluccas we saw had red, white and green stripes on their booms. Except some were red, yellow and green. Any similarity to marijuana flag colors is strictly coincidental.
So it’s scorching hot out and you’re on a boat on the Nile. Obviously, you jump in. But there’s a bit of current and the water is very cold (more a problem for me than Dave and our fellow traveler, since I freeze up fast in cold water and fresh water makes it harder to float). There’s no life preserver or buoyancy aids, what to do?
Fortunately, my camera battery died so you don’t have to see how this worked out.
Next time: back alleys of Aswan!
P.S. Dave has no comment at this time.