They noticed I was awake, and we had a bit of brief conversation - my Arabic being as limited as it is and their not speaking FusHa at all, only the local dialect. Their son and I then played "Malek or Ka'aba (or maybe kitaba or kitafa)" which is "King or ka'aba (or maybe 'writing' or 'shoulder')" which is their equivalent of head or shoulders. I had a hard time flipping the coin, because it was so tiny compared to the large Jordanian coins. The women also had some food of bread and cheese and some half liters of water, orange juice, and soda which they ordered me to eat and then later my friend when she awoke. We passed the time in minor remarks and more playing with the boy (one of children's main purposes is to save adults awkward silences, I think). They invited us to get off at their stop and stay with them for a day, but we explained we already had plans to head to Aswan. Before leaving the train, however, they took a picture of us with the boy, as he mugged for the camera.
A few more hours of traveling, and then we saw a man rushing by our door. "Aswan," he said. We gathered our belongings and went out to join the general melee. The men around us smiled at us. "Where from?" they asked as we crammed into the space between the carriages. "America," we replied.
"Oh, America!" they said. "Obama good, Obama good!" they said enthusiastically, giving us big thumbs up. "Welcome to Aswan!" One of the men had a bag of dates, which he offered to us, forcing us to take them. "BelaH," he said motioning to them, "belaH," he repeated in case we didn't catch the name the first time.
We weren't bothered too much by touts, although one who foisted his help upon us finding the correct window for more train tickets really wanted us to take his taxi. We walked into the main green square to consult our map and provide a reasonable excuse for escaping the taxi driver. We walked over to a side street and eventually got a metered cab - not that he turned his meter on. However, the Keylaney Hotel was absolutely lovely and we were very impressed with it following our adventures at Nile Zamalek.
We left the hotel, walking along the Corniche, waffling between ourselves over where we should get lunch. We decided on a restaurant on the Nile, where we sat beside the river, sipping fresh juice and eating.
Following our relaxing lunch, we went to find the public dock. We were approached by a little old man, Mustafa, who directed us to it, informing us he had a felucca. He was very polite and spread himself very thick. We disembarked with him from the ferry, and he took us to see the brightly colored Nubian village from when he was. His spiel was a little excessive, but if you are trying to get customers, it's better to kill them with kindness than to hassle them to death. The village was absolutely beautiful and Elephantine Island (so named because of the huge rocks) was incredibly gorgeous.
Following the tour, we went to explore the ruins of an early settlement on the island, with a Christian tourguide. We had arranged with the old man to take a felucca ride after the tour of the village; we spent two and a half hours sailing about the Nile, relaxing in the perfect beauty.
The day, on the whole, was completely relaxing. Dinner was at the Nubian House restaurant (Mat3m Beit Nubi), where we enjoyed the view and watched a spectacular sunset among the aging European tourist set - really, though, the first place we had seen a lot of tourists. After dinner, we sipped our tea, and fended off the cats that wanted our left overs. Back to the hotel in our waiting taxi, for the calm end to a perfect day.
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