S.S. Karim – Day 4 – St. Simon’s Monastery and Elephantine Island

Today we woke up very early to ride camels to St Simon’s Monastery. The camel ride was a little daunting at first, but once you got used to the erratic movement, the experience was quite fun. I enjoyed plodding along at an ambling camel’s pace to take in the surrounding desert. As I looked out in to the vast expanse of gold sand and blue sky it made me think about this harsh environment and how easily it could kill, if someone was stranded or unprepared.

My camel’s name was Saudi and Rob’s was Mickey Mouse. Saudi apparently thought he was the most important camel in the group as he was constantly pushing and cutting the others off. He must have had a lot of fleas or just plain itchy skin as he would constantly fling his head back in an attempt to bite his own neck. Not only was the sight of his yellow and fairly large teeth off-putting, but the violent movement threatened to throw me off onto the hot and rocky ground.

I had mixed feelings about Saudi.

When we arrived at the monastery, a personal guide showed us around the site. He did not speak much English, but he overcame this by acting out creative pantomimes to illustrate the activities that would take place in that section of the building. It was amazing the amount of humor he could convey to us all without words. He had us all in stitches.

We headed back to the boat for lunch, and then on to our next destination which was a tour of Elephantine Island where the project director for the German team gave us a personal tour of the site.

After our amazing tour of Elephantine Island, we sailed back to the S.S. Karim on a felucca, where there were many opportunities to buy jewelry. I purchased numerous necklaces to take home as gifts.

Tonight Dieter, the Director of the German team, is going to join us all for dinner. That should prove to be fun. He seems to have an abundance of interesting stories.

What a jam-packed day! There was talk of watching another mummy movie after dinner, but I just don’t know if I have it in me. Tomorrow will be an early start. We are scheduled to embark on a break of dawn Nile birding excursion.