Egypt summer 2011, ASWAN part 1

After sleeping less than three hours we woke up around 4 am to get ready for the hot air balloon ride! We had a really busy schedule after the hot air balloon so we backed our backpacks to be ready to just pick them up from the camp. Again, we waited outside our camp for the company to pick us up. We paid 300 pounds / head (40€) for the trip and it was totally worth it! The minibus driver had gotten my egyptian number from Ahmed and called me to make sure that we had woken up and came to pick us up. Along with some other tourists we were taken to this big open area on the West side where there were four huge air balloons being put up. We could already see the sunrising behind the scenery.

Our balloon

Sunrise, taken from the ground

We were told instruction on the ground: listen to your captain on board and when he tells you to take the landing position we were supposed to do it immediately. We watched the balloons getting bigger and bigger and finally they were up. Then we were told to run fast to the balloon and get inside the basket quickly. I started climbing inside it when this man took me to his lap and threw me in. :D Everything happened really quickly. Before we noticed we were up in the air. Our captain Mohammed introduced himself to us passengers. The basket was much bigger than you see in movies. The basket was divided into five different sections one of which was Mohammeds (in the middle). There were maybe 10-12 people with us in the basket.

The ride was amazing! The view to Luxor was something so indescribable! The sunrise was beautiful! And we could see the sights we had visited like: Colossi of Memnon and the Temple of Hatsepsutin. We also spotted our camp and our hut! :D We flew above the River Nile and admired the view! We had thought that the balloons would land to the same place where they took of but they just flew farter and farter away from the West side and we ended up landing on the East side on some field. The ride took 45 minutes and was totally worth the price and the early wake up!

Our camp, the biggest island (the white one on the right) was the island were we swam

Our camp, our hut was the blue hut on the left side

Buildings on the East side

When we landed to the East side and we really were in a minute schedule to catch our train. The company workers were the best! Ahmed had told them our timetable and they really took care of us! They told us to get into the minibus which was leaving first and we got a ride straight to the river and there they had a boat waiting for us to cross the river. The boat took us in front of our camp (the harbour were to boats were supposed to go would have meant 15 minute walk for us). All this time one of the company workers came with us to make sure we made it on time! We crapped our backs and Ahmed was waiting for us to get us back over to the East side were he took a taxi with us to the train station. We quickly bought some breakfast to go which was so bad we couldn't eat it.. We told thank you to Ahmed and we were the first ones on the platform just 10 minutes before the train was supposed to arrive..

Supposed to.. Well it never arrived. We sat there like idiots when we saw Ahmed coming back and told us that there is no train coming and we needed to take a minibus to Aswan. Great. Then we tried to figure out how to get our money back from the tickets because at that point we had around 5€ left.. Ahmed told us that we could get the money back from the tickets at 5 pm so he agreed that he gave us the money now and he would get the money back from the tickets in the afternoon. We went to sit inside this minibus outside the train station. There was maybe 12 seats + the driver. Before us there were already three men waiting for the bus to leave but it wouldn't leave before it was full. Also there we sat like idiots before we figured the thing out and got off the bus to the outside to wait. We waited an hour before we got the bus almost full and then the men started getting mad at the driver and he finally agreed on leaving.

The bus ride was terrible. It was so hot and we were really hungry! We sat on the back seat and I had one backpack right next to me on the right side and the other one under my legs. Saija sat on the left side and this old egyptian man sat on the right side. I couldn't move at all or move my legs. No one on the bus spoke english and we had a fun time laughing with the old man when we for example tried to ask how long does the ride take. He also watched fascinated while I wrote our journay or when I watched our pictures that we had taken on the trip. The bus ride took 3,5 hours and again we had no idea where to get off! The busride felt to take forever! When most of the other passengers took off so did we. Oh, and before the bus left from Luxor we paid to this younger man who shouted people to get into the bus trying to get it full, we thought that he was the driver. Well he wasn't. And when the bus made it closer to Aswan the driver started to collect the money from the passengers. The men looked at us a bit when we didn't pay.. We tried embarrassed to explain that we had already paid for the ride.. We didn't have enough money to pay it twice! (we would have paid it twice if we had had the money because it was so cheap).

We got off from the bus and put our backpacks on and tried to figure out what direction to go to. At the camp we borrowed this local mans computer to check some places to stay at in Aswan. We were standing at some bus station and we were surrounded by taxi drivers offering us a ride. We really couldn't accept their offers 'cause they were too high for us and our current money situation. Finally this one taxi driver understood what we were willing to pay and we hopped on. He took us to the hotel Memnon of which downstairs happened to be a bank! 

The view from our hotel window to the River Nile

We draw out money while around 20 army guys in this big trunk watched us. We made our way to the hotels reception and they also had plenty of room for us. We got our own room with a big window to the River Nile and we paid 7,5€/head/night. We chose the hotel because there was supposed to be a swimming pool but there wasn't so we left out to find this four star Isis-hotel with a swimming pool. The staff there were great to help us out. They even agreed on changing our big 200 pound (27€) money to smaller. 'Cause in Egypt you need to have small money like 5 pound notes! They had no changes to give back at you anywhere when you paid with "big" money. We swam at the pool for around two hours and it was sooo relaxing after the bus ride. We were basically the only tourists at the pool. There weren't many in Aswan altogether. After swimming we were starving and ended up at some local restaurant to eat good food with a low price. We walked through some Aswan bazaar but we didn't buy anything. Then we made our way to the train station to figure out what our next move would be in a few days and how to get to Hurghada. We learnt that we had to take a bus to there instead of a train. We also found an internet cafe just outside our hotel and we stayed there for a while then we went to bed early.

Sunset, taken from our hotel window