After our visit to the Nubian village, we walked back to the River Nile. Once there, we got picked up by some Feluccas for some touring on the Nile. A “Felucca” is a traditional broad sail boat used for thousands of years on the Nile. They were designed to ferry stones from shore to shore. I suppose that means that the feluccas carried the large granite stones from Aswan to Giza and to other places downstream where they built tombs, temples, and pyramids. Feluccas don’t look like stone-carrying boats to me, but what do I know.

You can see a felucca on the Nile in the first photo. You can see the helmsman of our felucca in the second photo. What I found perhaps most interesting was the rudder and the oars (when we lost wind) were made of lumber that looked like simple pieces of 4 x 4 lumber. They didn’t have much taper or anything, except at the very end, and even then, it wasn’t much. It just seemed to me that after several thousand years of sailing, they would have developed better oars and rudders than that.

The third photo was one that I took from our felucca ride that I thought you might find interesting, since I did. This is a very wealthy Egyptian’s home which is right on the Nile in Aswan. The home looks to be quite modern and very nice. It also has very nice landscaping around it. The owner has prepared for his death, much like the ancient pharaohs did. The owner has built a funerary complex up the hill from his home on his property. So indeed, there are some Egyptians carrying on the ancient traditions.

Egypt is just full of antiquities. You don’t need to go to a museum or tomb or temple to see them. As evidence of this, I have included some more pictures taken during some of our felucca rides around Aswan.

The next photo is an Aswan landmark. These are some tombs right next to the Nile. The two tombs with long runways from the Nile to the tombs were, as I remember, tombs of a couple of the former “mayor’s” of Aswan. Obviously, a few others were buried along side them as well.

The next photo is an old water wheel and mill that are right on the Nile. They have not been used in a long time, but still sit in place.

The last photo is some cartouches carved into the granite right on the Nile. Cartouches were only used for gods or pharaohs, so there must have been a temple or something here long ago. At any rate, it was fun just boating around Aswan to see these sights, some of which are thousands of years old.

Aswan is a very beautiful city and we had a great time there.