Felucca trip from hell - day 2

I wake up the next morning it is actually a bit chilly - and I think about whether or not to try to unpack my sleeping back and get down in it. I can't be bothered it would mean work and it is too early in the morning to do something that takes that much effort. I wonder why the felucca is still not moving it is getting close to sunrise and we need to go far today to make some progress down the Nile. Well it is also too early for thoughts so I go back to sleep.

At around 7 the sun wakes me up - it is up. The felucca is still at the shore. The cook is still sleeping - and I am not sure whether the captain is sleeping or unconscious from the drinking/smoking/chewing the night before. There is no sign of us leaving anytime soon. Then finally the cook comes to life about 9 in the morning. He starts cooking - the captain is showing no sign of life - maybe he is not sleeping maybe he is dead?

It is now 9.30 the eggs seem about done - it is time to get breakfast. We go and eat - the captain is still asleep but he seems to be moving a bit by now - he is still alive. We are done eating at around 10 - and now the captain is certainly moving a bit more - he must be about to wake up - and sure enough at 10.15 he get up - but he needs to eat. He is fairly quick I will give him that and at 10.30 we are leaving. So much for the early morning start. As we are leaving I can still see the hotel was I stayed the night before - but now we are going down the river. I can no longer understand how we are supposed to make it all the way to Luxor by tomorrow night - but I guess the crew has done it before?

Today we are actually sailing down the river - crossing from one shore to the other. The sailing is actually nice it makes the air circulate so it is not too hot even though it is still way above 40 degrees this day - again like everyday on the trip it seems.

Then pretty early a bit before 5 we pull over at the shore - it must be a toilet stop we can't be stopping for the night already. It is still steaming hot and the second the felucca stops temperature start to rise. Well it is an ok place for a toilet stop for boy I mean we can go anywhere without attracting too much attention - for the girls it is a bit more of a problem the area is completely flat without any bushes but there is a tree ½ mile inland - or something. They head towards it trying to avoid the cow droppings spread all over the crass field.

And it seems like we are gone a stay right here - where there are no shade what so ever. It is simply unbearable and we riot. We demand to keep sailing - so we do. We continue down stream another 1½ and gets to a spot for the night. It is an interesting spot with a lot of local boys hanging around. It soon becomes obvious why the local boy is there - they want to see the girls go in the bush. Sweat - well action is appropriate and a couple of the boys are chassed away using stones and sticks. They withdraw a bit from where we are - at least temporarily.

Then the cook starts to do his stuff - one more time I must admit I am surprised how he managed to make a decent meal under these condition but he do. After dinner we have a bit of a party we all brought enough alcohol for two nights but nobody had anything the night before - hence party time - or whatever you can do on a small felucca.

Late at night a really noise boat comes along and it pulls to shore right next to us with the engine still running. Here we are on the longest river in the world over 6.000 kilometres and this really noise boat decides to pull ashore right next to us. How annoying. They don't seem to know how they turn the engine off hence it is still on way after we go to bed.