March 7, 8 and 9, 2023. 

On Tuesday, March 7th we went to the Nubian Village and the Philae Temple.  We got on another boat with life jackets, and took the scenic way on the Nile to the Nubian Village.  The boat trip was so peaceful and beautiful.  The scenery is beautiful.  

The Nubians came from lower Africa and have been in Egypt for centuries.  The Nubian village is similar to all the other towns we have visited.  Dirt roads, people seeking things, mostly women.  In other cities only men sold objects.  In the this village the women are the sellers because the men have to leave the village in order to get jobs. We were invited into a home.  The home has a large courtyard, then there are rooms for various family members off the courtyard.  When a child grows up and has a family, they add a area for the new family.  In this particular home the matriarch had recently passed away.  They have this painting of her on the courtyard wall.  

Next we went back to Philea where we had been the night before.  This time we learned more about the specific temples and how they had to move this one several hundred years ago due to flooding of the Nile.  Talk about a moving nightmare. Imagine moving those temple walls and bricks up the Nile River to higher ground. 

On March 8th we went by horse and carriage to the Edfu Temple.  We’ve been on horse and carriage rides before but nothing like a horse race through Cairo dodging busses, motorcycles, people, cars and a bunch more carriages.  The carriages are not to sturdy and several times it felt as if the whole thing would fall apart.  In any case, it was something to laugh about.  

On March 9th we got up early and flew to Cairo.  We really hadn’t missed Cairo all that much. As I’ve mentioned before it’s noisy and dirty.  It isn’t a city that you can just take a walk outside your hotel.  It’s just not safe and it’s so dirty that it isn’t appealing.  Though the Mongolian dust fog was not as bad as where we left earlier.  

In the afternoon we took a bus ride to the Coptic Church.  This was interesting.  The Coptics are a Christian group that are similar to say the Orthodox Christian Churches.  The church was very old started about 22 AD.  We also were able to walk through the Coptic Museum. There were lots of icons and carvings.

Well, the internet has been making us crazy, so we haven’t been able to post as much as we’d like.  But we will keep trying.  We are glad you are still with us, even though the posts are spotty.  Keep checking back as we have a great story about flying from Cairo to Rome.  

Take care, Bc and Gc