Cruising down the Nile

fishing in the Nile by Luxor at sunset

We spent 4 days cruising down the Nile from Aswan to Luxor.  I like going this way because the ancient sites in Luxor are the most spectacular of all the magnificent places to visit in Upper Egypt.  It's easy to fly to Abu Simbel from Cairo, then back to Aswan the same day to board the cruise boat.
While you're off the boat much of the time seeing the ancient Egyptian temples and monuments, you can spend cruising time along the nearly 180 mile trip looking at the fields and villages that depend on the river's water.

women gathered by the Nile to socialize

tending crops on floating island

The Nile still floods, but flooding is now controlled by water releases from the dams at Aswan.  So, no more rich deposits of silt spreading out across miles of land on either side of the river and no more channels flowing to the temples and pyramids and quarries that depended on them thousands of years ago.  There are long canals and ditches instead that water the fields. 

lucky donkey resting

Unfortunately, there is also a lot of trash clogging the canals, making it difficult in some places for the water to flow at all.
The government has finally become concerned about all the construction on Egypt's tiny bands of arable land that line the river.  About 3 years ago, it started enforcing a law that forbids building on the arable land by the Nile.  Homes, apartment buildings and even towns that take up this land are being moved to the bordering desert. 
When we tied up along the Nile bank just north of Luxor, some of us walked through the twilight to a nearby village.  As we left the secured area by the boat, an ever-present guide took us in tow, through beautiful fields of wheat and vegetables, and along the road to the village.  The wheat is tall and luxuriant right now, with large heads of grain.  Farmers plant other fields with fodder for their animals, onions, carrots, potatoes, melons, bananas and   lettuce.  Some grow tomatoes in greenhouses.

Nile banana farm

Most of this produce is transported to market via donkey-drawn wagons, old trucks or tractors pulling flat wagons.  A lot of the farmers also had a couple of dairy cows, sheep and goats.  We did not see any chickens on our walk and, of course, no pigs. 
When we returned to the boat, our "guide", who had been explaining how he took care of his kids and had to feed them and pay for school and so on, demanded more tip money than we gave him (we gave him a lot), starting with me and moving to the rest of our walking party, who also demurred.  Everywhere you go, expect someone to want to show you something special in return for a tip.  Life is not easy here.

sheep penned for night

mud brick village

Fishermen are out in the early mornings in small boats pulling in nets.  There are small floating islands that farmers plant with vegetables.  They tend these by boat, much like farmers living on Inle Lake in Myanmar.  Other boatmen cut the sugar cane that grows along the river banks (most of the sugar cane, however, grows in large fields and is an important crop in the agricultural economy here).

fields of wheat ripening

Families swim and wash clothes in the river, which is none too clean.  It is a gathering place, the key to the local economies, the heart of Egypt.