November 20 - Aswan Hotel

Aswan is in many ways a much quieter city than Luxor, except for the drivers.  Wheras in Cairo or Luxor, drivers are reasonably willing to let pedestrians arrive unscathed at the the other side of the road, as llong as it is not actually necessary to slow down or otherwise give way.  Aswan drivers see pedestrians as targets, and you need to be quick - it is not unlike a sideshow shooting gallery, and we are the ducks.  Come to think of it, 'duck' is the operative word.

In both Luxor and Aswan, they have introduced a new scheme to get people to pay attention to traffic lights, usually just perceived as a little bit of roadside sparkle.  Instead of a yellow light, we have a red and a green, and a countdown timer light in between the two, which counts down the seconds until the light changes.  It seems to be working, at least to some degree.  Instead of just happily bulldozing through red llghts, they now stop at the red, with engines gunning.  The instant the countdown timer gets to about 2 or 3 seconds, the starter's flag drops, and they are off in a scream of brakes and dust worthy of Le Mans.  Meanwhile, cross traffic sees the timer is about to change the light, and are madly  rear-ending each other to clear the intersection.  It seems to have become a whole new urban sport.

In Aswan I am staying in a little guest house over on the West Bank, in the centre of the Nubian community.  The situation of the Nubians is a sad one.  Nubia, the entire length and breadth of it, has been at the bottom of Lake Nasser since the building of the High Dam at Aswan.  The Nubian people, displaced and left to sort themselves out as best they could are scattered throughout Upper Egypt in small communities from Aswan south to Abu Simbel, doing their best ot hang on to their language and culture,  It is a losing fight I fear, but they are trying very hard to keep their identity.  

The guest house I am staying in is run by a lovely Nubian called Habib.  The hhouse is built in traditional Nubian style with high domed roofs.  Here are some pictures.

The sitting room very comfortable, with a big tv to catch up on news on CNN, or just relax with a book.

Nubians love colour, and paint the insides and ousides of their houses with lovely designs.

There ar only four rooms, mine is at the end of this hall, just before the stairs to the roof.

Stairs down from the roof.  Quite scary.

Communal dining room where everybody staying in for dinner sits down together to eat whatever Habib's sister the cook has decided is the meal for the day.  She is a good cook, the meals were excellent.

I had a pretty room with windows directly opening onto a Nile view, just a donkey's length away.  Pictures did not come out well, glare from window created problems.

View from the roof, very pretty at night with the lights of Aswan twinkling. We sat there after dinner every eveining, Habib, me and other assorted guests - a young Spanish couple, an English nurse, and later, some girls from Cairo.  Tea, thick Turkish coffee, shisha, and conversation.