Egypt & Beyond Day 07, Edfu

By travelerdon on November 10, 2022

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Today we arise at 5:30AM for a 6AM horse and buggy ride to the Edfu Temple. The Pharaohs Curse has been leaving me and I feel up to getting out. Rather bizarrely, we find all the buggy drivers fighting amongst themselves to get our business! But our fearless guide, Mo, reigns them in and gets us each assigned to a driver and horse!

The ride to the Temple is exciting along unpaved streets and the horses seem to want to race at times! This is a very poor place, even for Egypt! We arrive at the Temple unscathed though and we are instructed to remember our buggy number as that will be our ride back.

Mo takes us around Edfu Temple, the second largest in Egypt, giving us a history lesson as we go. He finally sets us free on our own and we manage to capture a lot of photos which makes our cameras very happy! We then meet back at the horse and buggies for the ride back to our ship. Unbeknownst to us, our buggy has changed and we think we are being tricked. But I refuse to get in and walk back to Mo, who assures us that our buggy driver’s brother has taken over for him and we go back and get in for our ride back to the ship!

We are back to the ship in time for breakfast and we get a bite to eat. I am feeling much better this morning. But I still lay down for a nap after breakfast. We have the rest of the day on the ship. Somewhere around Noon, we pass through a Lock. Nothing like the Panama Canal, but a Lock nonetheless.

Vendors assault us with their wares as we go through the Lock, rowing their boats right up to us and throwing their towels and clothing up onto the upper deck with ease. It is quite entertaining and just for the heck of it I buy a towel from one of them! We haggle by shouting back and forth but I finally win the bidding war at 150 EGP (Egyptian Pounds), the equivalent of seven US Dollars. All in all, cheap entertainment for an hour!