You are back on your vessel, so settle yourself down on the upper deck and just watch Egypt's panorama unfold before your eyes!
Endlessly on both banks daily life shows itself to you and seems much as it has been over the past hundreds of years. Agriculture, of course, predominates and that still requires all the efforts of man and animal to take full advantage of the rich alluvial soil on either side of the river. With the advent of the dams at Aswan, the seasonal floods are now a thing of the past but it is clear to see the dramatic and sharp divide between green cultivation and stark desert within 500m of the river bank - and that contrast is stark!
Past other cruise ships, darting Kingfishers, triangular sailed feluccas with patched and grubby sails, bizarrely flaming palm trees, the quarries and tombs of the quarry masons and the communal tricycle delivery cart washing places, the whole of life unfolds before you. And then you arrive at another river side temple...
(to be continued)
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