erm... in Egypt, still

We're in Aswan, It's on the map below about 1 cm below where I was where the red line ended in Luxor. After all that effort to get here for Friday. The once-a-week Monday boat that was going to go on Saturday due to end of Ramadan holidays is leaving Wednesday due to end of Ramadan holidays... that's tomorrow. Mick and I have caught up with the two poms, one of which is Welsh and both of which are called Nick (and I now know it is 'whom' not 'which' and am making an educated decision to not sound too much like a twat).

So stuck in Aswan for 4 days, there are worse places to be stranded really. We have been making the most of our time by doing touristy stuff. Nubian museum which was fantastically modern . I learnt that Nubains are a rather large group of people who live in both Egypt and Sudan so are the only people who do not have get Visas for Sudan. We did some fallucca boat sailing even swimming in the Nile - just the once but well worth it, no crocodiles. Visited an old monument they are always placed really high on hills, this one surrounded by a swarm of antagonistic children (it is comments like that which means Mick can not put a link from his site to mine... he's a primary school teacher). We also went for lunch in the house of a Nubian village chief, it was adorned with stuffed crocodiles (that's where they went). I learnt that the Nubian culture is alive and thriving on hash sales and fallucca boat commissions. We have watched sunsets, drank the last alcohol I'll see for months and that the guys will see till Ethiopia, met other travelers, chilled out, ate bad breakfasts and waited for our boat.

The skin on my face and arms has turned that horrible orange-pink colour that is not a tan, more just a look of a blush on jaundice. I look like an Australian. I'm going to have to get used to it. I'm rationing my sunscreen. I won't be able to buy any in Sudan.

The lost and found update: Mick's lonely planet not stolen, the Italian was waiting by his bike. Mick's Tank back (containing the list of useful stuff that keeps getting longer): officially missing, he has the paperwork to prove it. Nick's bike seat stolen a couple of nights ago: officially missing. a missing report takes a couple of hours... a stolen report takes a few days, a lot of forms and a few interviews. Cases of Egyptian theft is incredibly low.

So we are off to Sudan tomorrow, no really, I mean it this time.