Let it Snow?

I find myself waiting for supper and reflecting over the past three weeks. Christmas break is officially over, and I've had a lot of adventures to tell about. So where should I begin? At the beginning I suppose. Here we go.

First of all, the crew for this trip consisted of Kevin, Eric, and myself. Our travel plan was fairly simple: catch a train down to Aswan, explore Abu Simbel and all the temples in the area, then mosey up to Luxor to check out the scene there, after which we would make our way to Zowek to spend a couple days with students. We would meet up with Daniel there. After our stay in the village we would go up to Asyut and catch a bus into the Western Desert, stopping off at a couple oases and seeing whatever there was to see. That was the plan...

We managed to procure 2nd class train tickets from Cairo to Aswan for the 21st of December. Our train left the station at 10:00 PM and traveled through the night to reach our destination. I must note here that amidst the chaos and unreliability of Egypt, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the trains stick to a pretty good schedule. I would also like to add that traveling by train was very relaxing. The seats are large and there is plenty of leg room. Needless to say, we arrived in Aswan on Monday at 12:30 PM.
It was as we were exiting the train station that we met the first of what turned out to be quite a list of interesting people. We were walking in stride with a well-tanned man with black hair and stubble who appeared to be in his 30s. After a brief introduction we learned that the man's name was Ricardo and he was from Spain. Since he had no plans either, we decided to stick together and find lodging. We checked out several potential hotels recommended in The Lonely Planet guide book, and finally settled on the Nubian Oasis hotel. For a reasonable price we got a 4 person room and a tour for the next day. Feeling quite pleased with ourselves, we headed out to explore the bustling tourist trap known as Aswan.
Aswan is a city of 1.2 million people located in Southern Egypt. To say it is a tourist town is an understatement. Everything is overpriced and catered to foreigners. However, this is not all bad. The streets were very clean, thanks to the garbage service, and despite all the scams, the town was actually rather quiet and calm. We perused the spice markets and wandered through some souqs (open-air bazaars) before heading down to the waterfront to catch a felucca ride across the river. The Nile is very busy in Aswan as was evidenced by the many feluccas, fishing boats, ferries, and cruise ships choking the water ways.
We chartered a felucca to take us across the river to the Tombs of the Nobles, after which we would explore among the various islands in the are. Our captain insisted that we call him Jamaica, and the reason soon became obvious. He was higher than a kite. Although the thought of a stoned man piloting our boat was a little disconcerting, we comforted ourselves with the thought that if we had to, we could always jump out of the boat and swim. Fortunately that never happened, and before long we were climbing the hillside to explore the Tombs of the Nobles.
The most rewarding part of the tombs wasn't the tombs themselves. The view from the top of the hill, however, was fantastic. Standing in the ruins of a large stone gazebo, we could look out in all directions and see Aswan laid out below us. After getting our fill of the tombs, we boarded the felucca once more and sailed around the many islands in the area. This voyage continued until after sunset, whereupon we debarked looking for food. What we ate isn't important, although the spaghetti was quite good. But the conversation we had with Ricardo was really interesting. Now keep in mind that there's no way of verifying his story, but all the same, it's worth telling anyway.
Ricardo told us that he was the son of a Spanish mother and a Columbian father. He went to school in Paris and Barcelona and is a fashion designer. He has traveled all over the world, both for work and leisure. His plans were to visit Paris, New York City, and Bogota within the week after he left Egypt. Ricardo also told us he had 3 passports; Columbian, Spanish, and American, enabling him access to virtually any country he desired to see. I can't verify this claim, and Ricardo said a lot of pretty fantastic things, so who knows. But more interesting than all of this were his ideas about life and religion. If ever there was a man of the world, Ricardo would be it. He proclaimed his belief that there was no God, yet he described how he believed every religion had their own "life force" that could be tapped. Apparently he had attended meetings from many different religious groups, including several cults. As his monologue continued, strange gaps in his logic became more and more evident. Although still a pretty nice guy, we realized that he was like a confused child, searching for meaning all over the world but never finding it. I really felt bad for him. Despite his success in this world, when it came right down to it, he was failing in the worst way. I wonder how man Ricardos there are out there...

So concludes the first day of my break. Tune in for the next installment.