Aswan

We arrived in Aswan just before lunch, checked into our newest hotel, Hapi Hotel (it really wasn't a Happy Hotel) and with just moments to recuperate, left immediately on the bus, heading south towards our Philae Temple visit.

Our ridiculously big bus, parked near the Embarcadero Templo de Philae, and as soon as we alighted we were flanked by vendors with more 'genuine handmade local goods made in china' to sell to us. We all hopped onto a small boat and continued south but on the water.

We travelled south on the very calm waters, acknowledging the fact that without he nearby Aswan Dam, we'd probably be walking. Hooked round to the south side of a small island called Agilkia Island with some imposing structures on top. The Philae Temple. Of course, back in the day, the Philae Temple was located on Philae Island until the dams made things difficult and temples had to be moved. One of many UNESCO projects to rescue temples from being lost to the River Nile.

We landed at the Philae Temple dock, welcomed by a vendor with some sort of lute and playing his own rendition of Frere Jacques. It was weird.

The sun was scorching, beating down on us all so whilst shadow hopping, Michael did his best to keep our attention with a tour of the temple.

As always the same rules apply, if someone walks into your photo, you must pay them...or run away and pretend to be hard of hearing.

At the end of the tour we had about 15mins to walk around the whole complex, which was plenty to cover the extra photos I wanted to take.

We jumped back onto the boat, which took us north back to the port, onto the bus and straight back to our hotel of happiness, for opportunity to grab some food and have a wander around the nearby bazaar for our trip mission of buying magnets and postcards.

In reality, we had no idea where to go. Wifi (as was the theme of this holiday) was shockingly bad, so we asked at the front desk who directed us to nearby restaurant El Masry where we, not knowing what we were really ordering managed to eat some really good food. The quantity of food we managed to order would promote regrets later in the evening.

We returned and got ourselves ready for a 6pm team dinner. This is one of a few G Adventures community dinners, on this occasion, on Elephantine Island which sits right in the middle of the passing Nile River. To get there, we had to take the ferry that crosses the river many times a day.

The itinerary read "Walk through the village and fields and learn more about the life of the Nubian people before enjoying a delicious traditional dinner at a local home". We did indeed walk through the village, but the local home was actually a restaurant called Sabaha Kato. I really enjoyed the traditional nubian food plus we celebrated the birthday of one of our troop, and then returned to the boat, the hotel and our beds.