Day Three of our latest Nile Exploration.

Good evening and welcome. (I just love pinching other people's catchphrases!) Here's one specially for my old Mother at home in Windy Nook, "Can you hear me Mother?" We don't telephone very often, as we are both going deaf, but she is in the modern age and consults her laptop regularly.
Anyway, back to our day on the Nile. This morning, Abdullah took us ashore to view the Temple of Horemheb and the adjacent tombs of Tom Dick and Harry. Very interesting, I'm sure! Before we went, we had our breakfast on the sundeck. While we sat there Freda pointed out a cat sized creature strolling along the footpath. It had a long fat tail, like a cat, but short legs and a rather pointed face. Of course, as usual, I hadn't brought the camera, and by the time I retrieved it from our suite the beast had disappeared out of range. If you know what it might have been I'd be pleased to know. Abdullah the guide said that it must have been some sort of rat!
We started off wandering along the rat path in some lovely soft deep sand, it reminded us of our summer holidays spent at Seahouses with the children. There were many footprints on the way. Lots of birds, some which Abdullah described as "wolf" prints (but we all know that many Egyptians call the small desert foxes wolves) and also a track which had obviously been made by a unicycle:


Daft Abdullah said it was the track of a scarab beetle, but what does he know????

It was an interesting walk, I've got to say. As well as clambering about in the tombs and rocks we came across some different things; like the empty lightbulb boxes!
Being of the normal consciencsous type, the man in charge of replacing the bulbs which illuminate the antiquities hereabouts, just drops the boxes wherever he happens to be! (I think he must be a regular visitor at Dr Al Malach's surgery downstairs!!!! Abdullah showed us where the ancient sailors had made themselves a tying up place for their boats and ships:



I was quite taken by the coloured ceilings in some of the tombs:


Abdullah was also explicit in his instructions to NOT put our hands in or near any cracks or crevises in the rocks, we couldn't know what was lurking in them! So, when we had to make our way up this gully in the following picture; he threw a stone up it first. He actually looked quite concerned!


These monuments are situated in what Abdullah described as "The biggest sandstone quarry in the world." I'm not sure whether that is technically true, but it did seem to carry on for a long long way. Just past where I took this next picture from, there is a sign forbidding further exploring.


The David Attenborough in me led me to also snap this queer little six winged creature:



We travelled under sail for quite a while during our onward journey to Kom Ombo. This meant that other boats were passing us, as there wasn't a great deal of wind. One such boat was the Abercrombie and Kent dahabiya. It is very large! In fact, it has TWO tugs to tow it along when the wind drops, here it is:



I'm sure you will agree that this vessel bears more of a resemblance to a large motor driven cruiser than to a dahabiya!

We visited Kom Ombo Temple along with the tourists from several other cruise boats, it was quite busy. In fact, Kom Ombo was very busy! Whilst we were moored there, there were about 30 cruise boats visited, including those which were there when we arrived and those which arrived before we left.
As usual, Abdullah was excellent; showing us things on the walls which we had not seen before, even though we've been there about 6 or 7 times. He's also very willing to please.