November 4, 2018 – Aswan

This morning we went to San Simeon Monastery.  Mona met us at our hotel on Elephantine Island (this name is the result of rocks on the end of the island that looked like elephants in the water).  

We took a boat to San Simeon. There were men with camels waiting for us.  My camel was in the middle of breakfast and not happy about being interrupted.  Rick and I got on our camels.  Mona preferred to walk.  Seven years ago she was on a camel while guiding at San Simeon.  Her phone rang and her ring tone was the sound of a chicken.  The camel panicked and was looking around for the chicken.  Meanwhile Mona was fumbling trying to get her phone out of her purse. The experience traumatized her as well as the camel and she has never ridden one again.  She laughs about it today but still doesn’t want to get on a camel.  

The camel ride was fine.  I can’t imagine riding one across the desert because it don’t think it would be very comfortable.  Here are some camel pictures.

San Simeon was a Roman fortress before it was converted to a monastery.  There seem to be several stories about how it was started.  One is that it was started by Christians hiding from the Romans.  Mona told us that Christians were initially persecuted by the Romans just for being Christian and later because they believed that Jesus was god on earth (similar to how they view the pharaoh) while the Romans though he was a human version of god.  Another story is that a man passed a funeral on his wedding day and  decided to renounce the world.  (Hmmm.)  Either way it started in the 7th century.  

As many as 1,000 monks are believed to have lived at San Simeon.  We saw the monks’ dormitories, the kitchen, the dining room as well as the church which still had original paintings.  The monks would grow their hair and tie their braid to the ceiling while praying.  If they fell asleep and their head dropped they would wake up as a result of their hair being pulled.  They grew their own food so they were independent and isolated.  The monks took in pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem and Mecca. 

Here are some pictures.  

We returned to our boat via the camels. Our boat took us back to the hotel and we said goodbye to Mona.  She was really an excellent guide and an outstanding person in general.  

That afternoon I worked to get caught up on the blog.  

In the evening we walked over to the market.  We thought our driver was eating pistachios the whole way back from Abu Simbel.  Mona told us they do that to stay awake.  She said we should be able to get a kilo from 40 or 50 Egyptian pounds (about $3).  Unfortunately we didn’t know the Arabic word for pistachios, but eventually we found someone who had them.  It turns out they are very expensive, 800 Egyptian pounds for a kilo or about $25/lb. No bargain so we didn’t get any pistachios.  We think Mona was talking about peanuts.  We also think the driver must have been eating something other than pistachios.  

Here are some pictures of the market.

We came back to the hotel and Rick had a beer and watched some soccer in the lounge area.  I worked on the blog.