GOURMET TRAVELLER 125Step inside and that message is made explicit
in scenes depicting the divine heritage of Rameses
and his queen, Nefertari, and of the king’s victories
over his rivals. Smiting is a theme, as is the mutilation
of prisoners. The scale and essential beauty of these
carvings in the rock inspires a kind of vertigo, but
so too does their immediacy, reaching across the
millennia. They are crumbling, and scarred with
centuries of graffiti, yet the fact that they were made
by people very like us hits like a blow. That sense is
intensified in chancing upon a chamber or anteroom
without another single living soul in it. For every sight
or scene that is invigilated, roped off and crowded
with a Babel-babble of guides trying to out-explain
each other in English, Mandarin, Italian, Arabic,
Russian, French and Japanese, somehow there always
seems to be a corner where a culture-dazed visitor
may stand alone in reverie, glorying in the mysteries
of the hieroglyphs and breathing in the scent of
sandstone – and with it, an intimation of eternity.
The number of people holidaying in Egypt
plummeted during the Arab Spring and has yet to
return to its pre-2011 heights. The Department of
Foreign Affairs and Trade advises Australians to
“reconsider your need to travel to Egypt due to
the threat of terrorist attack and kidnapping”, and
with incidents as recent as the roadside bombing in
December that killed three tourists en route to the
pyramids, this warning is not groundless. Heightened
security is much in evidence; there are metal detectors
at the entrance to landmarks, places of worship,
and many hotels, and a minimum of two checks
to get into an airport.
But for Egyptians these measures, and the
presence of police and soldiers equipped with
automatic weapons, appear to have become routine.
To the casual visitor, at least, the atmosphere on the
streets is not oppressive, the hassle factor nothing
compared with India, the touts not as insistent
as those in Marrakech, the homelessness less
confronting than in San Francisco, and the sense
of personal safety greater than in Mexico City.
Egypt is, to put it mildly, more than familiar with
having visitors. The majesty of its civilisation inspired
travellers from far and wide even in antiquity, and
the vintage graffiti inscribed on its monuments bear
witness to the intensity of the Egyptomania that
gripped Europe in the 19th century.
There are few better places to get a feel for
this mania than the Old Cataract Hotel in Aswan.
Churchill was an admirer, and Agatha Christie set
parts ofDeath on the Nilehere. Stepping out of the
gorgeously baroque bar brings an assault on the senses,
in the best possible way. The breeze and dazzle of
the Nile, the arc of the desert, and the palm-shaded
comforts of the terrace rush in all at once. I’d say
it was overwhelming, but the feeling is more one of
rightness. And that feeling only deepens with further
exploration, whether it’s taking breakfast on a felucca
on the river, or simply taking in the view of these same
sailboats from the terrace at sundown, musing over
mint tea and a puff of shisha.
It would be easy to stay within the hotel grounds.
But there are things to see. Up the road at the Coptic
cathedral, an angel with a sword watches over a guard
with an AK-47. And a visit to Aswan that doesn’t
include the island of Philae isn’t really a visit at all.
It was at Philae, on the Nile, that Isis was said
to have found the heart of her husband, Osiris,
after her brother Set chopped him up and strew
him around the country. With the help of Thoth
(head like an ibis) and Anubis (head of a jackal),
gods of healing and embalming, she made Osiris
whole again – the first mummy! – reviving him long
enough for her to conceive a son, Horus. Isis has been
worshipped at Philae since the time of the pharaohs.
The major temple was built in the Ptolemaic era, and
it is magnificent. Cruise up to it in a small boat and
see it luminous in the late-afternoon sun, its elegant
mass looming through the sand-washed palms, and
know the sublime. Walk its courts and vestibules,
and observe the tidelines of history, the wash of
Greek, Roman and Byzantine influences. Here a
chamber converted for Christian worship, there
Horus at his mother’s breast. Cats play among the
columns. They’re born on the island; the boatmen
catch fish and feed them.➤Above: aboard
theSanctuary
Sunboat IV.
Opposite, from
left: statues of
Rameses II at
Abu Simbel; the
Nile seen from
the Old Cataract
Hotel, Aswan.
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man Hisham
Gabri with his
charge, Captain
Cook, in Giza.