Grand Tour of Egypt: Camel ride, Aswan

Our ride to the island to visit the Philae Temple had been on a noisy and smelly diesel ferry, so imagine our delight when our next venture onto the Nile was on a felucca.
These traditional sailing boats zig zag their way noiselessly up the river between sunrise and sunset, passing enormous cruise ships, tiny fishing boats and barges carrying such things as animal feed and rock. Progress is slow and unhurried – a delightful contrast to all our previous modes of transport and very relaxing.
The hillside tombs above that we passed on this ride were for officials and important people in Aswan. After disembarking by walking down a narrow plank to land, we walked across to our waiting camels. Each of us was allocated a beast – mine a 25 year old male called Lu-Lu – and then we were assisted to get on.
Two members of our group fell off in the process and I certainly felt that I couldn’t possibly be sitting in the correct position for the sense of insecurity I was feeling. We set off across the sand with some camels wanting to race off and others fussing around and behaving badly. At least Lu-Lu only glanced at me and roared his disapproval but my assistant said he was only letting the other camels know that he is a big man. Unfortunately the most tentative member of our group regarding camels had scored a badly behaved one so she, poor thing, had to go through getting off and then on again with a ‘better’ animal. Camel riding was an interesting experience and about ten minutes worth would have been sufficient for us.
However the force of a group heading off to a destination and the thought of being alone in the desert as everyone else hoofs it into the sunset kept me clinging on for dear life, so much so that I got blisters on both hands. Others in our group saw the camel riding as a special highlight of the trip, which just goes to show that we are all different. We have vague memories of the San Simeon Monastery, seen from a ridge, yet easily recall the feeling of relief that we were not descending into the valley for a closer look, which would have involved speed and greater skill in camel riding. We would put camel riding into the ‘achievements that we don’t need to repeat’ basket, but maybe next time would be different since we would be ‘experienced’ riders.