ASWAN DAY 2 - NUBIAN DINNER
That evening, Andrew arranged for us to have dinner at a Nubian village on one of the islands in the Nile near Aswan. The village has something like two televisions, one refrigerator and two air conditioners. The population of the village is about 2500. The village has a patch of land about the size of my apartment that can be used to cultivate stuff. The rest of the land is barren desert. The villagers were moved here when their lands were to be flooded following construction of the High Dam. Since then, rock etchings have been found at some locations on the island, and the government has taken back some of the land that was originally given to the villagers. Needless to say, this does not make the locals very happy. The locals make their livelyhood from tourists who visit the village, sail their boats, and buy their handicrafts.
We sat on mats on the floor of someone's terrace and enjoyed the local fare. With no offense intended to the rest of the cooks on our trip, I must admit that the dinner at the village was by far the best food we had eaten since getting to Egypt!
A view of the Old Cataract Hotel (of Death on the Nile fame) in Aswan, taken from the boat en route to the dinner at the Nubian Village. I never did have high tea at the Old Cataract.
At some point during the boat ride, part of the crew turned into our entertainers for the evening, and convinced us to join in the singing and dancing!
Dinner being brought to us at the Nubian Village
Our menu for the evening - lentil soup (dal for those familiar with Indian cuisine) in the center, rice to the right, and going clockwise - vegetables in a spicy tomato stew (almost curry), fried potato chips, bbq chicken, and salad. Dessert was watermelon (not shown).
With my "cousin" Ahmed Abdullah in the souq in Aswan. I wanted to buy a decorative brass plate. He wanted LE120 for it, I was not willing to pay more than LE20. I started off at LE15. So we haggled for about 20 mins before he brought in tea. After another 10 mins of haggling, he agreed to sell it to me for LE20 but insisted that I take his picture and send it back to him because the owner of the shop (his uncle) would kill him. He wanted the picture so that his wife and daughter could remember him after he was gone. So I plan to mail him the picture shortly. Rest in Peace, friend!!
I slept in the following morning (again, no surprise to those who know me!!) and in the early afternoon, we boarded the MS Amy for a cruise up the Nile.