{"id":8252,"date":"2019-11-27T07:38:29","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T12:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8252"},"modified":"2020-10-13T13:01:20","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T17:01:20","slug":"egypt-adventure-the-nile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8252","title":{"rendered":"Egypt Adventure: The Nile"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Nile<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In a much-anticipated 17-day trip, I finally went to Egypt\nthis month. To see in person the legendary monuments and all the evidence of a\n4000-year-old civilization was, of course, thrilling. The whole experience was\nenhanced by the skill of our Grand\nCircle<\/a> tour guide, Gladys Haddad, who, despite her name, is Egyptian. The\noverwhelming friendliness of everyone we met was heartwarming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you probably know, but may not have thought about, Egypt\nis basically a desert. Almost all the country\u2019s 100 million or so people live\nin the narrow strip of arable land along both sides of the Nile River. Egypt\u2019s\nWestern Desert, which extends to Libya, and its Eastern Desert, which extends\nto the Red Sea, flank this fertile Nile valley. We were well aware of this in\nCairo, because of the tremendous amount of dust in the air and on anything not\nmoving, like a parked car or building. Check your plate when you sit down to\neat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some places, that fertile strip is miles wide, in others,\nmountains encroach. There\u2019s a sharp line between where palms, crops, and other\ngreenery will grow and where they will not. Here we have plants; here we don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For millennia, the north-flowing Nile predictably and massively\nflooded every June, bringing a thick layer of silt to the valley and recharging\nthe farmland soil. In the 1960s, the Aswan High Dam was built to control this\nflooding, which has enabled much enlargement of the area available for farming\nand building where it was impossible before. If you\u2019ve seen old photos of the\nNile with the pyramids in the background, those were taken during the flood\nseason. In fact the river channel is many miles away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In ancient times, several fingers of water flowed to the\nMediterranean, but over the centuries, many of them were blocked off, and now only\ntwo form the Y of the delta at Alexandria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t know or had forgotten that Sudan was originally\npart of Egypt and was not an independent country until 1956. A tricky political\nproblem to watch is whether Sudan pursues a plan to build more dams on the southern\nreaches of the Nile, closer to its headwaters. Such an act would be\ncatastrophic for Egypt, which has no groundwater and depends totally on the\nriver. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Nile<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In Cairo, our lovely Intercontinental\nHotel Semiranis<\/a> overlooked the river, and, surprisingly, in this generally\nconservative country, the party on the corniche 15 stories below seemed to go\nall night. That I did not expect. Neon bedecked motor cruisers, water taxis,\nand traditional feluccas are always out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a week on this trip, we were on the lovely MS Nefertiti<\/em>, pictured below, cruising from Luxor south to Aswan with stops for the sights in between. 220 tourist boats (capacity 100-200) are licensed to use the river. About 80 percent of them were on the water this month, as Egypt\u2019s tourism industry continues to recover from the dip after 2011. They dock six to nine abreast in the major ports. If we thought we were spoiled by the hotel staff, imagine 75 Americans on a ship with 63 crew! One night they set up a movie for us\u2014what else, but Agatha Christie\u2019s Death on the Nile.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"River<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

More to come<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Egypt Adventure: Security<\/a>
Egypt Adventure: Muslim Dress<\/a>
Egypt Adventure: Cairo’s Ancient Sights\/Sites<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photos: the Nile from the boat and at night by Vicki Weisfeld; the <\/em>Nefertiti by Grand Circle tours.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a much-anticipated 17-day trip, I finally went to Egypt this month. To see in person the legendary monuments and all the evidence of a 4000-year-old civilization was, of course, thrilling. The whole experience was enhanced by the skill of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Egypt Adventure: The Nile - reports on my 17-day adventure in Egypt start with its lifeline: the Nile River.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[104,78],"tags":[1554],"class_list":["post-8252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-morgue","category-travel","tag-egypt"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/2019-11-08-17.55.37-rotated.jpg?fit=2448%2C2448&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-296","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8252"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8307,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8252\/revisions\/8307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}