From Luxor

There is a long blast from the foghorn, we all stir, and the worn white ferry pulls off the concrete jetty and turns north up Lake Nasser. It is a little before sunset and a crowd of men have come up on deck to pray. The ship gently sways and sixty white robes kneel and rise and tilt their heads back and forth, their backs to the setting sun. Night falls and I lie out on deck looking at the sky. We pass a great temple on the western bank. I think we must be in Egypt now; bathed in soft yellow light there are four colossal statues, sitting on stone thrones, guarding the entrance to a temple, carved into the rock. One has lost its head; the others have slit eyes, closed beneath pharaonic manes. The spotlights flood the smooth temple façade in warm light and beams are caught in the narrow groves of hieroglyphics that have been etched into the rockface. Abruptly the lights are switched off and the temple and its stone pharaohs disappear into the shadows.

It is chaos when we arrive. A monstrous old Egyptian policeman blocks the metal doors to shore; brutish arms outstretched across the gates like thick rope. Porters in torn blue overalls and grimy white turbans barge through the crowded metal tunnel, ferrying huge plastic sacks and TV boxes and metal crates. Fat women in burkhas fall to the ground, we are all sweating. Police pour onto the boat, everyone is shouting and shoving, cramped in the low steel alleyway. The doors open and we flood onto the jetty like taunted bulls suddenly released.

From the port the road weaves between pale desert hills. There are concrete barricades lining the tar, and empty century posts linked by ribbons of barbed wire, as if the sandstone wilderness were a prison. Tall wasted apartment blocks line Aswan’s outer hills; layer upon layer of box balconies beneath a clutter of decaying satellite dishes, rising to a clear blue sky. I reach the river, and ride slowly up the palm-lined bank. There are huge cruise ships docked beside the promenade. I can see glittering chandeliers and flat-screen TVs and golden staircases spiraling between the decks. Behind, white-sailed feluccas glide upstream like cotton kites.

I linger in Aswan: the cool conditioned air inside, the lines of shinning street lamps, the bus-loads of white faces, the fridges full of branded drinks on every corner, the carefully manicured alleyways of its pristine souk, filled with neat sacks of colourful spices. I realize I left Africa behind in the sands of Sudan. It makes me sad.

From Aswan the road runs north between the Nile and the railway. Narrow plots of maize and sorghum are crammed into the thin plains beside the river, and across the tracks to the east, houses of all colours are huddled together on the steep banks of a dry sandstone ridge. Streams of sotty yellow carriages trundle past on the rails, men hanging from the open windows, faint veils of black smog trailing in its wake. I overtake donkeys, lugging brightly decorated wooden carts, piled high with bundles of wilted maize stalks or gas canisters. Smartly uniformed children make their way back from school. The girls wear white veils and blue dresses, the boys are in neat shirts and shorts. Many are fat; all have black buckled shoes and shinny new backpacks.

I reach Idfu near midday and stop to see the temple here. In a high enclosure on the edge of town there are two huge smooth-walled stone monuments, joined by a rectangular archway. A pair of granite falcons stands either side of the entrance, and behind, through the dimly lit interior, lines of beautifully engraved alabaster colonnades, showing gods with the heads of birds and foxes and crocodiles, recede towards crumbling statues beyond.

Big white coaches, with ‘Luxury Tours’ written in gold letters on their sides, zoom past as I ride north to Luxor. Dark grey curtains are drawn shut behind the windows. Every five kilometers, black and red fences have been pulled into the road, funneling the traffic into a single lane. Policemen sit smoking in the shade, and I try to stay on the blind side of cars as we bounce over the bumps, to avoid another passport check. The road leaves the river and passes steep sandstone hills that catch the sun’s rays, sending waves of heat radiating towards the road. There are dark rectangular doorways cut into the rock, and no signs of life on the ridge. I rejoin the Nile and the land is green again and full of people and I watch bright red tractors churning up the fields.

As I approach Luxor the streams of tour buses thicken and in town there are white faces everywhere. Some are dressed like Arabs in jalibiyas. Long rows of cruise ships are moored along the riverbank, joining into a thick band of gleaming white that sparkles like a brand new shopping mall, floating on the Nile. On my left there is a wide dusty trench dug between the roads. I look down, and between the racing-black-bus-tyres and the slow-moving wooden cartwheels, I follow a line of sandstone sphinxes that leads to a grey obelisk in front of two towering temple gates. Amidst green palms, two stone pharaohs stand beneath the gates, and behind, like a limpet, a smooth domed mosque sits amongst the ancient piles of crumbling stones and colonnades.