The Fourth Day: Cruising the Nile

Entering the lock at Esna. Another cruise ship is ahead of us, sharing the lock.
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In the morning we moved into the  lock at Esna and went to the upper deck to watch the action. I had gone through the Welland Canal on a Great Lakes cargo boat and the process was really the same, except that in Canada the bridge that goes over the  lock does not carry cars, trucks and donkeys.

Cruising the Nile was relaxing and fascinating, for we were travelling the  same  water highway that Egyptians used thousands of years before the pyramids were built. We cruised past villages, farms, pumping stations and other cruise boats and just sat and enjoyed the sights  unreeling before us.

"The gift of the Nile."

Looking back along the top deck of the Miriam at the bridge crossing the canal and some of the traffic using it.
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When we were first assigned our cabin, we were given a room with a window looking out on the Nile, like everyone else, but were a little surprised that it was such a cramped window, with a strange slant that covered half of the area that we thought could have been used for viewing the passing scene. When we went outside to have a look around, we examined the boat more carefully and noted that all other cabin windows were quite large, and then realized that ours was right next to the main stairwell and that the designer had slanted the window as part of the overall  look of the boat. Presumably  our slanted window was meant to give the boat a raked appearance -- at our expense.

A Nile River barge waiting to go through the lock. What, we wondered, had it hit?
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We  brought the problem up with Walid, our guide, and he got us a better room with a full window. We were delighted when, later on we were able to have some drinks in our room, enjoy the river passing by, and take some good pictures. While it is not a good idea to complain about everything, when there is a serious problem and you are not treated equally, speak up.

The boat stopped to visit the Temple of Horus, a much more complete temple than Luxor and Karnak. It gave us a good idea of what an Egyptian temple looked like when it was built, and the pictures make that clear.

Is this the ship used in the movie "Death on the Nile"? If so, it has seen better days.
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Later we pulled up right beside the temple of the crocodile god at Kom Ombo. Until the dams were built farther up the river at Aswan, the Nile was the home of crocodile and hippopotamus. The Egyptians believed that spiritual forces were not confined to humans and that certain aspects of the gods were expressed in animals -- the strength of the gods in the lion, their ferocity in the crocodile, and so forth. Hence a god might have a human body and a lion's body (thereby creating a sphinx), or a human body and a crocodile head. At the temple of Sobek at Kom Ombo, the Egyptians mumified crocodiles as a mark of honor (you can see them there), and showed temple reliefs of a god with the head of a crocodile.

Workers in a field along the Nile. The scene is timeless, for the field has been cultivated for over 3000 years.
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Cobras were also seen as representing divine attributes, and were shown on the crowns of the pharoahs to indicate that the kings were protected by these divine beings. And we saw them in front of the temple, tended by a snake charmer. Who protected us from them, we hoped.

The next day, as we continued to cruise up the river, the desert got closer and we could see why Herodotus called Egypt "the gift of the Nile," for without the river, this country would all be desert.