Summer Break : Upper Egypt Adventure.
08:19
“Nash, take me with
you?”
I smiled.
“You’re
gonna love the places.”
Every year, I seem
to crave an adventure or two, and recently, my wanderlust took me to Luxor,
Aswan up until Wadi Haifa in Sudan.
It’s midnight. Catching
the 2:00 am train from Ramses Station, Cairo was more a matter of staying up
late than waking up early. I arrived at the station with a friend, fellow
medical student, Uja with plenty of time before our scheduled departure. We sat
at the bench in the station anxiously awaiting our second-class coach train to start boarding. The
anticipation of the adventure ahead was more than enough to keep us awake in
the early morning hours, and we both figured we’d have plenty of time to rest
on the train to the Upper Egypt.
When it came time
to board, we carefully stepping around the sleeping passengers, we explored the
other corridors of the train. We passed sleeping couples, families, solo
riders, and exchanged friendly nods and smiles with our fellow passengers who
were still up as the train sped through the predawn hours. Finally, Uja and I
settled in our seats. We stared out of our respective windows from this new
vantage point as our familiar, but fleeting city whipped past. I looked at my
travel companion, her excitement was palpable.
The train took us
past big cities and jagged terrain before opening up to beautiful landscapes,
treating us to view of vast stretches of desert and small towns. The ride to
Luxor was simply breath-taking. Luxor is thirteen hours from Cairo so when we
arrived we were fortunate enough to still have the whole day ahead of us.
Uja and I, along
with other passengers disembark at the station around 11 in the morning and
when the train continued onto Aswan, we were left alone to explore the town. We
spent the morning establishing our base camp at the hostel, and getting ready
to explore the city of temples. We walked around the city, capturing moments
that we made along the journey and embraced the 44 degrees heat. We met Mohamed
by the pier. He wore a dark, long abaya, a traditional Arabs clothes. We spent
some time talking, while our eyes feast upon the idyllic sunset. Some of the
most insightful points during our day were getting his musings, wisdom, and
thoughts concerning the temples and cities of the dead that were located in the
Upper Egypt.
The rest of our
trip went this way: we moved when we felt like it, and stopped when something
captured our attention. The following ten days were spent trekking and ran
through the cities of the dead. We roamed around in search of all the famous
vistas we had grown up seeing in pictures and books. We were almost eaten alive
by the scorching heat, we outran a sandstorm, and we photographed iconic
temples formation. As expected, Kom Ombo and Abu Simbel were my favourite
temples.
I’ve been a fan of Steinbeck
for nearly five years and I love his thoughts on taking trips: “A journey is a
person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing and
coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not
take a trip; a trip takes us.”
All in all, the Upper
Egypt is a scenic and diverse places; it is being slowly, almost-begrudgingly,
renovated to cater to tourism after the revolutions (both on 2011 and 2013), but still manages to
maintain its rugged landscape and cultural beauty. Whether it be desert,
temples, or cities by the Nile, Upper Egypt has what you need for a low-key but
absolutely memorable getaway.
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