Taking the Night Train, Cairo to Aswan
From a moving train, an overnight trip heading south to Upper Egypt:
We left Cairo at night. Boarded, found our cabin (car 11, bunks 7/8), and settled in. The swinging – swaying motion of the train, a glass of red Omar Khayyam Bobal 2016 “vin d’Egypte” and I was comfortably numb in my little bunk. Wound up and tucked in happiness at the very thought of being on a train, moving up the Nile Valley, at night, many many miles from home.
Awake to a tiny bit of light, the Nile glistening. The Nile! The valley is never more than 13-miles wide–a green strip in the middle of the largest desert on earth.
As the sun rose, how verdant green the valley appeared. Palm trees abundant like Cuba. Scarecrows in fields wore sheet dresses over sticks. Small boats paddled along the Nile, the Sahara just steps away.
The windows are double-paned with blinds in-between. They clamor as we pass junctions. My window was dirty, but it cast a fitting strangeness over the scenery. Diffusing the light, blurring the edges.
Breakfast arrives at our door. A tray with tea in a little blue cup, a boiled egg, some bread. Simple. Welcome. And made delicious by the environment.
A white dog lays in a patch of white in a green field. Donkey carts and their white-gowned men wait to pass the tracks. The sun rises. This part of the trip will soon be over and I want more of it. Maybe an eternity of it. Maybe the afterlife is an never-ending ride through the world–to see its beauty, its ugliness, and all the things between.
Welcome to Aswan, Upper Egypt
I’m happy when we check in to the Happi Hotel in Aswan. A man greeted us in the lobby with a white metal tray full of little tulip shaped glasses filled with a deep red Hibiscus tea. Delightful.
Up in our room, we overlook a little market. A mosque calls to prayer. And then, what are they doing down there? There are bamboo cages of pigeons. Pigeons fly down from the buildings to have a look and grab a bite of the treats the women throw down. They are captured. I watched in horror and disgust as she wrings one’s neck. He writhes for a moment–the wings fighting for flight. And then she begins plucking his feathers out. He’s grilled. This happens a hundred times a day. The birds come to stillness. Why don’t the caged pigeons warn them? They too are wrung, plucked, and grilled before nightfall. The market closes and empties. And pigeons still coo from buildings around. I want to shout at her–and the people who eat animals. I want to tell the pigeons to fly far away from here. Escape. Instead, I cry.
Opposites…Nile & Sahara
After breakfast overlooking the Nile, we embark on a cruise on the Happy Day boat.
There’s a Nilometer! Farmers built steps down to the river 5,000 years ago to try and predict the Nile’s rise and fall…would there be feast or famine? A Nilometer as described by Mark Twain in the 1860s: its “business is to mark the rise of the river and prophesy whether it will reach only 32 feet and produce a famine, or whether it will properly flood the land at 40 and produce plenty, or whether it will rise to 43 and bring death and destruction to flocks and crops.”
Bulrushes and long-legged birds! Trying to picture a baby Moses in a basket floating among the reeds.
The cataracts! A shallow spot of the Nile, broken by large boulders. There were six cataracts along the Nile between Aswan Egypt and Khartoum Sudan. One is submerged now because of the Aswan Dam.
The Old Cataract Hotel where Agatha Christie dreamed up “Death on the Nile”. Built in 1899 for tourists, it reeks of old worldliness. And sand dunes right down to the water’s edge.
To Elephantine Island
In the late afternoon, we disembark on Elephantine Island, one of 10 remaining Nubian villages.
Nubians are a group of people living in Northern Sudan / Upper Egypt. There once were 22 villages in Egypt, but 12 were flooded with the building of the Aswan Dam in the 1960s. Our guide told us that given a choice to be Sudanese or Egyptian, the Nubians chose Egyptian.
Tasty and filling dinner of rice, and cast-iron pots of potatoes and peppers, and carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes. And delicious Hibiscus tea 🙂
Walking back to the Nile in the pitch black night. Burning trash. Sounds of birds flying free. Soft voices in the narrow alleys. Singing…from a mosque? Cats cats cats. Boys on bikes. Then the eternity of the Nile. The lights of Aswan glowing across from us. Another place–of colorful narrow alleys and quiet life–where I’d like to spend more time.
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Carol Fletcher is a traveling, dog-loving, tree-hugging, coffee-addicted, Nashville born-and-raised photographer living in Chicago. To see more photo essays and projects, please visit www.carolfletcher.com.