HOME | POLITICS | SPORTS | LIFE | SCI/TECH | OPEDS | HELPFUL TIPS
|
Jan. 31, 2005 [Internationally best-selling novelist, William J. Lambert III (William Maltese), whose trademark is romantic story settings, tackles the oft-asked question, “Which spots have you personally found the most romantic?”]: By the time you’ve traveled 600 miles up the Nile from Cairo to Elephantine Island (where a Nubian ivory market once thrived), you’ve usually overdosed on the pyramids of Giza and Sakkarah, the tombs and temples of Thebes, Luxor, Isna, and Idfu. You’ve come either by plane (a two-hour flight due south from Cairo), by train (overnight by Wagons-Lits sleeper), by car (a multi-day adventure, depending upon the unreliable Egyptian roads), or by boat (sailing time varying from where you embarked along the Nile); then, by motor launch from the city of Aswan to your hotel on Elephantine Island. There’s a wider selection of accommodations in Aswan, but the island’s western-style Hotel Oberoi is considered by many seasoned travelers, I included, one of Egypt’s finest. If you're a typical tourist, you linger only long enough to eat and sleep before catching an early-morning flight farther south to Abu Simbel where the rock-cut temples of Ramses II were bodily lifted by a UNESCO team from the path of rising waters behind the Aswan High Dam. It’s an indication, though, of Elephantine Island’s special charm that you’ll find only a few visitors who don’t remark favorably on this mile- long bit of paradise in the middle of the Nile, even when hectic schedules usually only allow for brief stopovers. It's the real aficionado of romantic locales who thwarts package-tour itineraries and stays the few extra days. The Nile narrows here to form its “First” Cataract (actually it’s its “Last” Cataract, but early navigators counted upriver from the Mediterranean). The water is sapphire-hued, tinged with white froth as it parenthesizes large and small boulders of basalt blue- lacquered by iron oxide. The agricultural greens, parallel the river all of the way to the distant Nile Delta, shrink here to slender threads of vegetation vised by pink desert on the east and by pleasantly contrasting gold sand on the west. Elephantine Island, though, is an explosion of verdant flora outdone only by smaller Kitchener Island a short ten minutes away by Egyptian sailboat (“felucca”). If Elephantine and Kitchener were sites of long- gone fortresses that once guarded the southern frontier of the civilized world, Kitchener is now famous for an extensive botanical garden created by its namesake, Lord Kitchener, when he was the English Consul-General in Egypt during the late 1880s. Feluccas can sail you around both islands in about two hours, depending upon the wind. Or, there’s nothing more romantic than having the hotel pack you a lunch for a whole day of leisure boating. The current that sweeps you north, and the prevailing north-to-south wind that assures your return, are the same that propelled pharaohs’ crafts thousands of years before. A felluca, too, can deliver you to the west bank of the Nile to find one of the most popular sites with tourists and local locals alike: the attractive mausoleum of the Muslim religious leader, Aga Khan. Your walk up the winding pathway is well worth the effort, both for a peek at the cool white marble interior and for the outside view of the surrounding countryside. From camel handlers, found near the mausoleum, hire one to take you to the Monastery of St. Simon. Despite the horror stories about the undulating movements of cantankerous “ships of the desert,” the half-hour ride will leave your posterior in better condition than had you mounted a horse to travel the same terrain. The monastery, built by monks in the Sixth-century AD., is one of the largest and best preserved Coptic structures in existence. Extend your ride for another half an hour and see the long-ago looted Tombs of the Aswan Nobles (circa 2300 B.C.). If they can be reached more directly from Elephantine Island by sailing to the base of their section of steep western embankment, the resulting climb up the narrow stairway is less enjoyable, and far more strenuous, than the more exotic and roundabout access by camel. If the tombs aren’t as impressive as their more famous counterparts elsewhere along the Nile, they offer a pleasant diversion missed by most short-time visitors. The Oberoi’s convenient launch, lackadaisically designed to resemble Cleopatra’s barge, gives ready transport from Elephantine to the city of Aswan on the Nile’s east bank. Once the gateway from the civilized north to the rich trade routes of Central Africa, Aswan boasts 500,000 people and a marketplace still a cornucopia of handicrafts and foodstuffs. Aswan shops attract not only tourists in garish holiday dress but locals in traditional “galabiyahs” (long outer robes worn by Egyptian men and women). Souvenir shopping can yield jewelry of fused mosaic glass, gold, silver, and ivory; carvings of alabaster; boxes of inlaid ebony; antiques (before buying the latter, know the strict prohibiting laws regarding the export of such artifacts); the camel saddle your mother-in-law always deserved; perfumes; stamps, tempting creations of brass, copper, and copper-washed-with-tin. As for the food, try “leban zabadi,” a thick and creamy yogurt whose decidedly sour taste goes exceptionally well with sliced cucumbers. Or “kufta,” a minced and marinated lamb molded around a skewer and broiled, tasting decidedly of onions, parsley and marjoram. If you’re reluctant to experiment with snacks from the local venders, traditional Egyptian dishes are served regularly in your hotel dining room. Area hotels and the Aswan market, also, sell adequate Egyptian wines, or you can stick with nonalcoholic “karkade,” an attractively raspberry-colored tea served hot or cold and made from hyacinth petals. The brew pleasantly reminds of a concoction of several “berry” Kool- Aids and is understandably a hit with most children. A short taxi drive south from the city is the rock quarry from which the ancient Egyptians cut many of their monuments. One incomplete obelisk is still trapped half in and half out of the bedrock. Go a few minutes south, and you can take a tourist launch to the Temples of Philae which sit on their own island in the Nile, the Fourth-century B.C. buildings removed from their original site which became flooded after the 1902 completion of the old Aswan Dam. The newer High Dam, completed upriver in 1972, has more than 50,000,000 cubic yards of stone, more than 17 times the amount used in the Great Pyramid at Giza. Behind the new dam, the drought- controlling water of Lake Nasser is sometimes backed up over 2000 square miles. Not that you have to leave Elephantine to find sights of interest. There’s the island’s small Nubian village, a short stroll beyond the Oberoi’s landscaped grounds, offering a view of rural life-style little changed for centuries. Mud houses, surrounded by high mud walls, are separated by dusty and narrow walkways shaded by banana trees and date palms (the climate too dry to grow coconuts). Chickens, pigs, and goats run loose with wide-eyed children, all vying for attention as you make your way to the scanty ruins of Egypt’s once-most-important frontier town situated on the island’s southern tip. Here, ancient Egyptians believed was the birthplace of the great river, the water supposedly born from a bottomless spring bubbling up between two rocks, and what remains of a Nilometer, one of twenty such stone “yardsticks” used in pharaonic times to measure the height of the Nile, can still be found nearby. However, Elephantine Island’s real charm exists not because of any archaeological sites or artifacts. Rather, it’s the total ambience of this green and flower-studded world, surrounded on all sides by the white-frothed Nile, blue basalt, and pink-and-gold sand. It’s the sheer pleasure of leaning on a cool balustrade and watching feluccas skim mirror-images; exotic and vibrant-hued blossoms bigger than your opened hand; golden sunsets painted across a horizon awash with lacy pink clouds; past and present intermingling in a way that works here but misses in other spots as equally steeped in legend and antiquity; melodic drumbeats playing across the water every evening, the harmonious voices of boatmen raised in song; cool wind off the river caressing cheeks flushed from another day of glorious Egyptian sunshine. It’s feeling there’s a no more romantic spot on Earth that delivers quite so much exquisite and aesthetic pleasure to whomever is lucky enough to linger for a day, for a week, for a month, or for that always illusive, but thoroughly romantic, happily-ever-after. ------------ About the author William J. Lambert III: Take a look at his books: Written under his pseudonyms, William Maltese: http://www.williammaltese.com Email: the.lambert.iii.laager@worldnet.att.net Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
||||||
|
|
|||||||
|
