Yesterday we left our somewhat noisy dock at Esna and sailed to Edfu where we visited the Temple of Horus, after driving through the town market. The temple had a huge wall (pylons), much like Karnak, and is considered the best-preserved temple. It's "only" about 2,000 years old, though. Nevertheless, lots of heads have been chipped out (thanks to the Romans, who didn't want the Egyptian gods to have any power when the Romans took over the temples, so they chipped out all the faces).
One guy made a lame attempt to get some baksheesh -- we thought he was taking us up to the roof of the temple (which I heard had amazing views), but it was locked and he didn't have the key (and he obviously knew that). Very lame. He asked for money, but I turned him down, disgusted by his lame effort.
Edfu was a nice temple, but after Karnak, it was probably difficult to impress us.
Afterwards, we sailed on to a private mooring at an island on the Nile. Once it was dark out, we watched Death on the Nile in the boat's salon. Which then of course made us all careful about locking our doors at night:-)
Dinner was outside, as it was a special barbeque night for us. It was scrumptious -- tahini, babaganouj, eggplant moussaka, lentil soup....Yummy.
The music teacher from the school on the island where we docked came to the boat and played the oud and sing after dinner. He also had a small entourage of two drummers with him. It was fabulous and one of the boat staff had us all up and dancing.
Today we set off at 0830, sailing toward Kom Ombo after passing quarries where they got rock for the temple and pyramids. Likewise, there were small temples built into the rock at the quarries.
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