The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters [221]
Jan. 4. Most of the gang went to Abu Simbel this morning. They had to get up at four-thirty. Need I say I did not go with them? (Been there.) Shopped the suk with Bill and Nancy instead. Suk is more authentic than Luxor, but I fear the good local handicrafts are fading out, to be replaced by t-shirts and junk. Bought spices and three embroidered pillowcases, not nearly as nice as the ones at Luxor just last year. Work is cruder, colors gaudier.
After lunch (the food is fatteningly good and hard to resist), we took feluccas to Elephantine Island. More damned wobbly eight-inch gangplanks! The old museum, once the home of the engineer who designed the first dam, looks odd with its Victorian trim and wide veranda. We visited it a couple of years ago, poor shabby neglected place, and the curator was pathetically grateful for company. So I didn’t go in. Most of the good stuff has been removed to the new Assuan Museum. Wish I could say something sensible about the excavations, which were closed to visitors last time I was here; they are extensive and fascinating, but it was a maze to me. There’s no guidebook and the only publications are in obscure (to me) German professional journals.
Jan. 5. Went to the Assuan Museum alone; I had never seen it. On entering whom should I see but John and Debbie — I love these serendipitous encounters; they only happen to me in Egypt! But John was all bandaged and battered from an accident: A truck ahead of them turned a corner too fast and dumped a boulder on the front of the Land Rover, shattering the window and more. You see trucks like that on the road all the time, overloaded and without tailgates. It’s a miracle more people aren’t injured. (Maybe they are.)
It’s a splendid museum — beautiful architecture, objects well displayed — and John and Debbie were wonderful guides. We went back to town about eleven and found a place on the corniche — lower level, actually on the water. They had lunch and I kerkedah — a deep red, sweet, ice cold drink made from stewed hibiscus blossoms. Resisted the urge to purchase the blossoms in the suk this year — in Egypt it is delicious, when I make it at home it tastes awful! The boat was to sail at 12:30. I figured I might have some difficulty finding it, since I had been warned it would be moved, preparatory to sailing. I was right, but we did find it eventually. John and Debbie saw me to the gangplank of the innermost boat (docked where ours had been this morning) where we met a couple of other people from the tour, who greeted me and I them with shouts of joy. We had to go through three boats to reach ours; they tie them up so that the lobbies adjoin, and it’s kind of interesting to see what other boats are like.
I’ve gotten to know most of the people by now and have chatted with most, though I will never get everybody’s name straight; I’m hopeless about names. This is a great bunch. Phil and Kathe came back from shopping with a bottle of gin for me. That’s what you get when you expose your vices and complain aloud (there is no gin at the bar of the boat.) It’s Egyptian gin and probably quite vile, but what a sweet thought — n.b., I brought it down to the bar next night and made everybody sample it. Tasted like grappa or anisette! After I had swilled some down someone told me I shouldn’t have because sanitation is questionable; but I figured 90 proof alcohol would kill most everything.
Lunch on the upper deck, then departure. I do like sailing. The weather is perfect, sunny, and not too windy. My window faces east. There’s not much village life, only lots and lots of palms, with the golden