Friday, November 7, 2008

Aswan


We arrived at Giza Station in Cairo for our train. It was due to leave about 10:15 pm, so it was pretty good that it got away at 11:00 pm. We felt as though we had been on the go for days, so we were all pretty tired and ready to take a seat on the train.

The train isn't too bad, as long as you understand its limitations. The seats are good (we were in 'first class'), with plenty of room and a good recline. However, the toilets at the carriage ends aren't first class (their class level diminished as the trip proceeds). The lights stay on all night and it gets a bit cold.

The trip is supposed to take 13 hours. Ours took 15 hours (we arrived at 2 pm), which is apparently a good performance.

We got to our hotel and had a shower, which was bliss. We then had a walk around the nearby souks, which weren't worth much attention. We had an early dinner at a restaurant on the Nile and then got an early night. This was merely self-preservation - we anticipated a 2:45 am wake-up call so that we could travel to Abu Simbel

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