Impression of the Nile

Sitting silently on the deck of a felucca, winding with the current from Aswan to Luxor. This peaceful, twenty-four hour journey, under these perpetually sunny, sometimes brutally so skies, allowing me ample time to write slowly while watching the banks of the Nile drifting by. Our boat is a time-honored tradition. A wooden hull vessel with a canopy covered deck and a 23 meters tall mast and sail stitched with sixteen pieces of canvas. A crew of three sails the boat with 13 passengers and the captain maneuvers the rudder elegantly, skillfully from abeam to port to abeam to starboard.

Everyone must conjure individual feelings when they are cruising up the Nile, in row boats, speed boats, feluccas and large cruise ships we pass by from time to time. I stare at the dark blue, green waters with depth but surprisingly not murky nor necessarily feel polluted. On the East Bank, palm trees line a highway and a railroad. On the West Bank, the endless dunes and mirages of Sahara Desert expands, dotted by electricity towers and and lines carrying power from Lake Nessar and the High Dam to nearly 55 percent of this country.

So far my impressions of the Nile and Nubile country is a culture and land of greatness that has been in continuous decline since 1000 bc. As I stared at the monumental status of Ramsus II and the Temple of Abu Simbel and the majestic tribute to Isis at Temple of Phillae, human architecture that today even seems impossible. In comparison, the painted mud huts where the Nubile people still live today, even granted, with satellite dishes, are ???

I hadn't thought about that the trip had a long boat cruise down on the Nile. It hadn't impressed upon me that I would be on the longest river in the world, marveling about the civilizations, societies, religions that this body of water has supported since the antiquities. I had read nothing before I came, even forgetting the minuscule amounts of geography and social studies that were the staple and perhaps favorite subjects of my teenage years. Certainly it seemed out of a mirage to climb on to of a desert mountain to be staring at the Nile while also facing the desert that extends to Morocco. Perhaps I'm feeding my romantic natures and writing even more cliché feelings of this river.

The crew all want to know where we are individually from. Every Egyptian seems curious. I wonder how many similar accents they have already heard before and undoubtedly will hear again although it seems the Chinese haven't found this land as I continually am being asked about being Japanese even as I avert my eyes and remain in resolute silence. We are passing a pasture where, horses, goats, sheep and camel all seem to be grazing at the same time. My thoughts on more serious subjects all seem to be far away right now.