black egypt

people (especially from the north) always pair Luxor and Aswan together but there is nothing really in common between the two cities besides that they are egyptian. Luxor is the last frontier of Al Sa3eed (the people of the lower valley, usually mocked in the north for being hard headed if not stupid even (and they are far from that, I am learning so much about how prejudice city folks (alexandria and cairo) are towards people from other parts of the country and personally I am much more fond of upper egyptians, bedouines and siwis than I am of city people who I concider to be diluted, confused, not as interesting, business oriented if not even boring. Aswan is the southern most city in egypt and is the gateway to africa and you can really see it in its people.. although there are many who look typically egyptian from the valley, there is also a great population of nubians, and people whose liniage is african from sudan and even western africa.. with eyes wide apart, and a bigger wider galaba that ranges from solid colors to pin stripped pink, blue or green, these are yet another group of people.. who ever said that egyptians are homogenous!

I just sat on a popular ahwa (coffeeshop) to have a sheesha and tea and the arabic (egyptian and lebanese) music videos playing seem here to be as foreign as western videos. typical videos here playing on one of almost 20 local music channels which are the staple in any egyptian coffee house involve scandalous overly sexualized women dancing and singing in showers or riding in bikinis in slow motion on a horse on the beach with her face partly covered .. they are just not part of the upper egyptian environment even more so than they are from any egyptian city really..

the tables were covered in a wall paper pattern that my family had in the 1970s.. there is an old feel to the south that it maintained, I even told my cab driver tonight that Aswan reminded me of egypt in old black and white films.. surprisingly the recent fashion of girls wearing headcovers with tight pants shared between northern egyptian cities and turkish muslims as well as the gulf never made it here, there are many women dressed as they looked in those old black in white films with no headcovers etc.. its a breath of fresh air for me.. people here are much more straight forward and honest and haven't developed that double face that northern people have. also (and this is regarding men only as i have been mostly interacting with me) sexuality here is far more open and people are not ashamed to ask direct questions and seem to be comfortable with whatever comes their way, for example I have spoken here with men about my sexuality which they respect and seem to have not the slightest problem with, which is something that I would not do up north.

before coming back here to have a sheesha and blog, I was at Nubian House Resturaunt, which was recommended for sunset views over the city. its a nice place on a hill overlooking the islands of the nile and the city but i felt like it was also a tourist trap.. prices were a bit high and they had an "authentic" nubian house that they show you around where you are finally ushered into a souvenir shop.. I had walked there after a visit to the Nubian Museum, which is actually a nice building and a good quality museum, however the collection is unimpressive if not confusing.

I left Luxor this afternoon with a microbus (the local popular mode of transport which costs 25p - less than 5 US cents!) ofcourse the mode of transport takes a route outside the nifty and spiffy city center where tourists meandor, there was a makeshift market among the construction site of a road overpass, and the typical non-aesthetic of exposed brick and concrete sturctures began to take over. the micro bus took me to the edge of town from which I took another to the parking lot of mini buses that connect cities and towns.. a man stopped me with a big smile and shook my hands very firmly, sexual overtones hover around the handshake.. again!.. I went on and finally got on my bus to Aswan.. the road is pretty incredible, the three hour journey is along one of the many canals where I even saw a medium sized crocodile! and kids still swimming in the canals (despite the massive health campaign against such activity). sometimes the road is among lush green fields on both sides and sometimes the rocky desert was on the left side and the lush fields with forests of palm trees were on the right near the river.. the entire journey cost 12 pounds!$2

leaving luxor I realized how much i didnt photograph.. buildings and people.. I am too embaressed to take pictures of strangers in general, so the most impressive part of my experience of egypt on this trip (the people) are totally absent from my pictures.. even the buildings, in such a rich place the extraordinary gets all the attention especially on a first time visit so most of my pictures are of the ancient, however there are gorgous early 20th century buildings that still stand and some are being used or slightly added to, unlike such buildings in both cairo and alexandria which are becoming more obsecured. I wish I photographed these 1920s buildings with there high wooden cielings visible through windows if you look up from the street, some had a very modern take on ancient egyptian aesthetic, others had a very typical european aesthetic while others were typical 1920 modern.. along the way to aswan I saw the train stations built in the 1920s which were identical and consisted of a simple block form with a long horizontal plane creating shade on either sides of the block, the plane concludes on either side in a graceful curve.. there were also white washed villages built into the rock with bright white exteriors, simple cubic forms and nile blue windows and doors, like a tunisian or greek village built into the rock overlooking the nile.. pretty amazing..
in luxor there were also the old winter palace that once belonged to the royal family and is now an expensive hotel.. so much to fill the eyes, one visit can not capture all this, only the basics and the most obvious.

its almost 11 pm and I have booked a trip for Abu Simble leaving at 4am only in a few hours.. AbuSible is the massive Ramsis temple that was cut into sections and move up away from what has become and underwater site due to the rising waters of lake Nasser after building the Aswan High Dam.. I am excited to see it, it is another 3 hour journey south to the edge of Egypt with Sudan.

I just got a call from Mohammed, a man I met on the street in Hurghada who is from Aswan.. he is inviting me to spend the night with him and his family tomorrow.. this should be another special experience.