Our second day in Egypt was quite different from the first. We set off before dawn to cruise along the Nile so that when we woke in the morning we could see the banks of the river passing our window. I should say that we were on one of the lower levels of the ship so that we were quite close to the water.
It was a delight to be slowly moving along past sandy hills and clumps of palm trees with a few islands dotted here and there in the river with the occasional mosque or a group of traditional buildings to break up the scene. Our boat had a wonderful sun deck with shaded seating areas, a swimming pool and sunbeds so we spent a lovely morning chatting with the other passengers and drawing in my sketchbook.
We saw many feluccas, the local style of boat as we cruised along, some fishing, some ferrying people across the river. The life here looked the same as it has probably looked for the last 3000 years. Eventually we came to Edfou where the boat stopped and tied up for the afternoon.
We were taken off to see another temple, this time built by the Greeks and finished by the Romans about 1000 or 2000 years after the original temples built by the Egyptians. Tarek explained that the decorations of the later temples were poor copies of the originals and that the physical proportions of the gods and pharoahs depicted in the friezes were incorrectly drawn.
We sat on the top deck at sunset at teatime and were rewarded with this fantastic sight as the colours changed through all shades of pink and purple.
This is another drawing of Ramses II from my collection along with the one of Tutankhamon at the top of this post. Both are done in coloured pencil.
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