It was a long day’s driving, but pleasant as it passed through interesting landscapes of barren hills with a vivid streak of green between, and drab houses made of worn brick, but the walls inside the balconies were painted vivid colours, sometimes with patterns or immense flowers, so I think the houses must not be drab at all from the inside. This far south of Egypt turns into Nubia, where the people are more African than Mediterranean and there is more colour splashed around.
The towns were as poor towns in hot climates everywhere. There is an astonishing sameness to them, with different faces and produce, different scripts and other slight differences – here, it was sugar cane season so we go stuck behind trucks carrying loads to the sugar mills and there were also small open-backed vans each with 3-4 camels’ heads bobbing benignly.
We visited Edfu and Kom Ombo, both largely from the Ptolemaic era, so recent as Egyptian architecture goes (both around 300 BC), but one was nearly intact so one could explore dark corridors which would suddenly open into daylight and the lifesized carvings of Horus on either side come to life. The other, the crocodile temple, was less intact but the art was particularly beautiful, with soft and distinct featured faces, as was the position, perched over a very wide, green-edged Nile. Also there were the crocodiles themselves, both the god depicted on the walls, and the mummified remains in the museum.
We had an excellent lunch – the driver was very clear on where to go, and it turned out to be this small workers’ restaurant on the road, where they served a set menu of orzo and chicken soup, salad and rice with two vegetables including molokhiya, and a chicken or meat. All of which was superb and it came with the star of the show, their home-made tahini which was, by far, the best I’ve ever had.
Far better than our later snack, the worst ice cream I’ve ever had, perched on the side of the Nile overlooking one of the Nile cruise boats. Can’t say they look very appealing to me but people seem to love them.
On the way back, thanks to dawdling but also the sugar cane, we arrived at the checkpoint on the border of the Governorate of Luxor in the north after the close of travelling time which, yesterday, was five. We were pulled aside, along with a van full of young Chinese escaping their families. When Euro-Americans and East Asians encounter difficulty in Asia/Africa I always feel a bit defensive, as there can be an edge of ‘these types of people!’ in how they talk about it, but the Chinese seemed more amused than indignant. They did quail a little when a fistfight broke out between two truck drivers (one wearing a white fur coat) at the checkpoint, but fair enough.
Eventually an open-backed van pulled up to be our armed escort. In the back was our protector, a soldier holding his large blanket with rather more tenderness than his large gun, as the night air was chilly. So we sped on our way, escorted closely for a while, and them we continued once in the city limits, to arrive as the night wind of the desert began to howl under a very starry sky.