Penny Watson gives up basic creature comforts for some time-out on a slow boat down the Nile.

Get Lost

I’M NOT SURE WHO WAS SNORING BUT THE orchestra of nasal instruments that woke me has subsided. I am left to ponder the sounds of my first night adrift on the Nile. Above me, sails ping as they brush against the mast, a rhythmic percussion that competes with the slow slapping of tiny waves against a wooden rudder. A lonely dog that I imagine to be sitting resolutely beneath a date palm ululates into the blackness from the shore. The haunting sounds of the call to prayer carry across the water from a nearby village. I lie there, listening.

The sights and sounds of the Nile have captured the attention of western travellers since the nineteenth century. In 1869, Thomas Cook, an English publisher, packed two steamboats full of Brits and took them on an Egyptian river cruise unlike anything they’d experienced along the River Thames: vast sand dunes rising only metres from the river’s edge, date palms and camels silhouetted against the setting sun and open-air history lessons told in the tombs and temples that punctuated the river banks. Westerners are still travelling to Egypt in vast numbers and a visit would be incomplete without an adventure on its famous river, the lifeblood of the country.

There is a variety of ways and means of travelling the Nile. The key variables are time, money and inclination. One option is to board a four-level cruise boat: a ‘floating hotel’ complete with swimming pool, bar, restaurant and all the mod cons. However, this mode of transport may guarantee you estrangement from the heartbeat of this enigmatic land.

Another option, the one my new-found friends and I have chosen, is far more rudimentary: a 30-foot felucca. Queen Cleopatra once sailed these waters in the same style of craft and little has changed. Our little sailboat has no motor and – wait for it – no toilet. We are at the beck and call of the wind to propel our craft downstream and at the mercy of the Nubian sailors to deliver us to shore when nature calls.

Our trip began in the Egyptian town of Aswan, a sleepy place on the riverbanks of the Nile. It’s worth wearing yourself out seeing the sights in and around Aswan because a three-night felucca cruise is ultimately a chance to chill. From Aswan downstream to Luxor there are a handful of attractions on shore but most of the time is spent on board as the felucca quietly edges its way north, tacking from one side of the river to the other, sometimes getting nowhere.

Spread across the wooden deck, a flat expanse that fits two men lying end to end, are brightly coloured mattresses and scattered cushions. By night this is our communal bed: five Americans and five Australians side by side, swaddled in sleeping bags and beanies. By day, there is no other choice. The roomy deck, shaded by a tarpaulin, is the place to lay back, read a book, play cards or trail fingers in the coffee-coloured water.

For the amateur photographers among us, it’s also an opportune time to get behind the lens. The day-to-day life of the Egyptian people is played out along the banks like an intimate movie. A fisherman in a wooden canoe sits patiently among the reeds, net in hand, waiting for a bite. Grubby children kick a soccer ball on the muddy water’s edge. A man drags his donkey along a precarious dirt ridge while another, in long traditional dress, jumps up and down on shore, waving his arms around to get our attention for no identifiable reason.

The African landscape is beguiling. Camels, with their doe eyes, stare at us languidly from the banks, chewing their cud like gum. Date palms spread their spiky branches over flat-roofed concrete villas and every so often the elegant minaret of a mosque appears against the brilliant blue sky, reminding me of the fragile hand-blown perfume bottles for sale in Aswan’s street market. The gentle putt-putt-putt of a pump gets louder as we approach the water stations that help irrigate the emerald green crops flanking the river and extending toward the desert. A few days later, high up in a hot-air balloon over Luxor’s Valley of the Kings, I begin to comprehend just how much Egypt and its people rely upon the Nile. Its water courses the length of the country like a major artery and its banks provide the sustenance for existence. A defined line, like a jagged scar, separates the irrigated crops from the parched desert, the starving earth from the drenched.

Slow bends in the river often expose the darkened doorways of tombs and small temples burrowed into the riverbank. We don’t stop at these, waiting instead for the major archeological sights between Aswan and Luxor. The first of these is Kom Ombo, a magnificent structure that sits high on a hill towering above the cruise ships docked on the edge of the Nile. The temple is divided into halves, mirror images of each other. One side is dedicated to the hawk-headed god Haroeris and the other to Sobek, a god in the form of a crocodile. Mummified crocodiles can be found in a small dusty room to the right of the temple, evidence that these reptilian beasts once sunned themselves on the reedy banks of the river.

Such dangers no longer lurk in the murky waters. On the afternoon of the second day we don board shorts and bikinis for a swim. Taking a dip may be a particularly Australian predilection as only one of the Americans braves the water and he doesn’t dare sink below the surface. Despite scaremongering about water-borne bacteria, I can report that all five that took the plunge are still alive and healthy.

As the sun sets we keep sailing to make up for time that was lost when the wind died. The landscape is bathed in brushstrokes of brilliant pink, red and yellow, turning the foreground trees into a series of two-dimensional paper cut-outs. The stars start to wink at us from above. One night while we bathe in the stillness of this serene time of day, our felucca, devoid of any warning lights, drifts into the path of an oncoming cruise ship. The crew are swift into action, shedding sails as the churning water roars towards us. Within seconds the telltale sounds of rooftop revellers at cocktail hour, once indiscernible in the darkness, are suddenly upon us. A wall of windows along the side of the boat envelops our foreground view and the bright deck lights briefly illuminate our tarpaulin before disappearing behind us, the noise trailing off into the distance. We pull in to shore shortly after, most of us running for a place among the banana palms to pee in peace.

Dinner is a simple affair. Our daybed transforms into a dining table with the help of a long sheet of plastic, a few candles and a scattering of plates. The Nubian sailors also act as chefs, using a single gas burner to prepare the meal. It is not a feast in any sense of the word – watery soup, pita bread, cheese triangles and a rationed meat dish. At breakfast the meat is replaced with jam and hard-boiled eggs.

There is plenty of fresh water on board and longnecks of beer are kept in ice below deck. The toilet situation makes beer drinking a tad tedious during daylight hours (and slow-going if we take too many toilet stops) but by night, when the felucca is anchored to the shore via a long wooden plank, a few relaxing beers seems fitting. On day three we stop at the temple of Horus in the small town of Edfu. Horse-drawn carriages greet us on arrival but the horses’ boney and unkempt physiques are, we are told, the result of ill treatment by the owners so we opt instead to catch a taxi into town. The sheer size of this temple (second only to Karnak in Luxor) and the fact that its towering roof is still in place make it a treasure trove to explore. Shafts of golden sunlight find their way into a forest of wide-girthed columns at the entrance to the temple. Further in, the walls are heavily ornamented with detailed reliefs depicting pharaonic life. It is the perfect opportunity to stretch landlubber legs while ingesting a snippet of ancient history, from 237BC no less.

On the final evening, our hosts spark up a fire on shore. In the dancing shadows they treat us to traditional Nubian music, the beat kept by a rhythmic thud on a wide, shallow drum known as a douff. Another memorable sound ringing upon the night air. The following morning we pack our bags and prepare to alight, perhaps too distracted by thoughts of a shower to mourn the end of our trek. We are moored next to one of the floating hotels and after almost four days squatting on the riverbanks a couple of us sneak in to use a proper toilet. Its interior is clean and luxurious and I can see how some might be tempted to opt for creature comforts. But as I’m reflecting on this I recall the shouts coming from the cruise ship as we passed so close to it in the dark. “Steer clear”, someone yelled. Steer clear indeed.