Nubian Palace Café – Memnon
A new café has opened near to the Memnon Colossi. It really is a very nice place. All the walls and ceilings are covered in carpets. I would say it was Bedouin style if it was not for the fact that customers sit on chairs and not on the floor. The prices here are the very best I have seen anywhere in Luxor. It has a snooker table, is air conditioned which is a blessing and has a wide screen TV; the Egyptian’s love their football and especial follow the English teams.
Rural
May has seen the beginning of one of their Wheat Harvesting programs. The countryside of Luxor sees many small landowners cutting and preparing their wheat. They all use small thrashing machines which leave many small piles of wheat in the fields ready for bagging. These thrashers are connected to tractors via a driven belt. Its a great site seeing these workers going about their daily work.
Nile Waters
It is the time of the year where the Nile waters becomes very high. It floods most of the farmland near to the Nile and that that is not protected by a bank or a sort of seawall. The Nile fish come into this flooded farmland making it easy for the locals to catch the them. Fish is at the moment the main dish of the time. The pontoons for getting on and off of the motor boats are now much higher and getting on and off of the boats has become very easy. For the ferries, their pontoons are very level and also easy for access.
At Ramla where I often take a drink and take in the Nile view and the river activities, the water is so high that some of the very large felucca’s are almost at my table. The owner of El doctor Ali café has asked the owners of these large feluccas if they can move them further down the Nile as it spoils the view across to the temple for his customers.
Shaduf Water Feeder
I found this amazing watering system tool named “Seduf” I was on my way to Luxor via the bridge and saw a man working it. I really should have stopped when I first saw it working the water. I have passed it many time now hoping to see it working again. Apart from the wooden poles, it is completely made of mud/clay. It collects the water from the lower canal and lifts it to the land where there is a sort of kitchen garden where it looks like they are growing onions and things.
Building in Ramla
There is increasing evidence of mass building going on in Ramla, so many buildings and villas going up everywhere on what was once called an illegal building area. It was once said that the government wanted to build a new road along the Nile to connect up with the bridge to Luxor. Now that this scheme has been dropped, there has been a rapid and large increase in new buildings going up. Land in Ramla is at a premium.
Arabian Horse Stables – Gazira West bank
Today was the regular Monday visit by the vet from the Animal Hospital. I watched the vet give a horse an injection while its two month old foal stood by her side. The vet also cared for other horses. The horses here are beautiful and well looked after by their owners. The horses are used for riding.
Weather
Summer is here and we are having temperatures now as high as 45c (114f). Air-con is a must just to survive and especially at night to get a good sleep. We have had a few days of over-cast with high cloud level and two days of high winds, not so much a sandstorm, just high winds. Sandstorms are the hate here as there is always so much cleaning to do after; the sand gets everywhere and it takes days to clean it away. Today as I returned from Luxor to the West bank, there were drops of rain in the air that fell on me and my bike., only a few drops. It was strange for me as I have not felt rain here in two years.