Today we had a boat trip by felucca across the Nile to be picked up by a motor boat to take us down into the rapids, or cataracts as they are called.
It was a lovely tour of this part of the Nile and lots of birds were pointed out to us but I only spotted the kingfisher (which is black&white here) and a purple heron. But I wasn’t quick enough to get pics.
The Aga Khan III married Miss France as his fourth and final wife and people thought it was a marriage for wealth not love as she was much younger than he. But he died in 1957 but she continued to live in his home part of each year and built the mausoleum to bury him. It is considered a classic love story.
There are huge granite boulders all showing the marks between now, the lowest level of the Nile and reaching up to the higher depth when the waters run in from Ethiopia in July. If the rains don’t fall in Ethiopia the Nile will remain low all summer.
Then we turned back towards Aswan and saw several places all decorated in traditional Nubian colours.
And then we stopped to look around one special village and here of the displacement in 1963 to build the Aswan Dam. The UN helped raise the Temple of Ramses but there provision for the 10,000 Nubians who were displaced was totally inadequate.
As we walked along there was a loom with fine cotton scarves and wraps.
When we got back to our boat a man selling bags was pulled up alongside of us trying to sell but no buyer I fear.
Tina’s Travels 
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