What the end of convoys means to Egypt tourists
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For the past 10 years, if you wanted to see the treasures along the Nile and you didn’t want to go by boat, you had to travel in an armed convoy. Not any more. Things should be very different now.
At Luxor, the end of the convoys should mean a (slightly) calmer visit to the main sights. Coaches will still arrive from the Red Sea, though, one hopes, not all at the same time.
Abydos has seen few visitors since the convoy system began. Just 80 miles northwest of Luxor, it and the well-preserved Greco-Roman temple at Dendera make a perfect outing from Luxor.
Visiting temples between Luxor and Aswan has been a frustrating experience, as the convoys allowed a maximum of one hour at each site, hardly enough to visit Edfu, one of the best preserved of all Egypt’s monuments. Also, as the convoys drove straight into the temple compounds, visitors were forbidden from visiting the living towns. Now, it will be possible to visit the camel market at Daraw, last stop on the fabled Forty Days Road, the trade route up from Sudan, and to see the lively Thursday market at Kom Ombo, 30 miles north of Aswan, where thousands of Egyptian villagers and farmers come to buy and sell livestock, farm tools and life’s essentials.
Beyond the obvious temples of Esna, Edfu and Kom Ombo, a string of less famous monuments, beyond the reach of the convoy traveller, can now be visited. The best of them is El Kab, once the capital of Upper Egypt and a reminder that not everything has survived the passage of time: the city’s huge walls remain, but there is almost nothing to see inside. Up on the hills above the ruins, several beautifully carved tombs show vivid scenes from everyday life.
Excerpted from an article by Anthony Sattin for Times Online
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