John Edward Cooper’s Notes

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Friday 3 February 2012

[2012]
[Thursday 2 February 2012]

The schedule for today was:

05:30 Sail to Kom Ombo
07:30–09:00 Breakfast
10:00 Boat tour with manager
12:00 Chat about Aswan in the lounge bar
13:30 Lunch
17:00–17:30 Tea time
19:00 Visit to Temple of Kom Ombo
20:00 Sail to Aswan
20:30 Dinner

I was awake so started ablutions a bit before 7am. Janet woke up a bit after. It was briefly a matter for concern that Janet felt nauseous and lay down for a short while. Yesterday had been sunny and quite hot, particularly in the Valley of the Kings; but today was cool and overcast. At breakfast, Margaret was not with Mehran when he appeared. She’d been very ill, and the doctor had had to be summoned.

09:52:10. Casting a net into the Nile. I wish I’d snapped a similar scene a few days later with galabeya-clad and turbaned men.

I went on the tour of the boat with others, given by the manager — just the pilot’s station and the kitchen, not the engine room because we were under way and it would be too noisy. The galabeya-clad pilot, wearing a light blue, circular, crocheted cap, sat cross-legged at the wheel on a high chair. Round the corner from there was his bunk.

Photo taken by Mehran

The mainly stainless steel food storage and preparation areas were visited next. There were interesting “sculptures” from vegetables and fruits.

Photos taken by Mehran

There was a room labelled “dish washer” — and there, within, was a man washing dishes! (We think of a dishwasher as a machine.) Rejoined Janet in the lounge. When we returned to the cabin, we were met by a cobra and a baby!

10:38:39 Mohammed’s “sculpture”: a cobra. (Or is it a swan?) It might have been the other chap’s, Mohammed’s fellow chamber-person’s, sculpture, though. Mohammed was the pleasant young man we mostly saw, but when we watched a demonstration of towel folding a few days later it was the other chap who did it.

10:38:54 Mohammed’s “sculpture”: a baby

10:39:30 Seen from the cabin window: a cargo barge

The sun came out and it got quite hot. At 12 noon we had a meeting scheduled with Ahmed about our visit to Aswan and activities while there, which we all (except Margaret) attended. This was in the forward lounge, which Janet and I been unaware of, with large panoramic windows for observation, accessed from the main lounge. Mehran stayed when the others left, and we chatted. After lunch, Janet and I sat back in the observation lounge.

14:55:09 Children playing on the west bank

14:55:19

Later, we sat in the awning-shaded open-air area at the stern end.

15:35:08 More west bank scenes

15:35:23

15:37:56

15:42:09

We took our “afternoon tea” (coffee!) into the lounge because the breeze had got cool. Ca.7pm our party went ashore for the look round Kom Ombo temple (“temples”, Ahmed pointed out, with dedications to Sobek the crocodile god and to Horus the falcon god). Margaret was well enough to join us.