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Tuesday, 17 April
(continued).
The ship arrived in Kom Ombo about 18:00 and we immediately
disembarked and walked a short way to the temple there. This small temple is
even more recent than the one at Edfu. It was begun by Ptolemy VI about 332 B.C.
and construction continued as late as 30 B.C. under Roman Emperor Augustus. But
it was built on a bend in the Nile and much of it is was destroyed by flooding.
Although it was still light when we got there, it quickly grew dark. This made
for an interesting effect as we made our tour. It was the first temple we'd seen
illuminated. The first pylon is no longer there, so the colonnade was at the
front of the temple. Salah took us to see one particular wall scene that he
thought was so important that we waited in a long line for 40 minutes to see it.
Kom Ombo is actually two temples side by side, one dedicated to the crocodile god (Sobek). There were display cases with mummified crocodiles in front of the temple, and we stopped to see that on our way out.
We walked back to the ship about 19:00, surprised that it was
still so warm out. Dinner at 20:00 was a buffet featuring Egyptian cuisine.
Since it was to be followed by a galabeya party in the lounge at 21:30, Jane and
I (and many other passengers) wore our galabeyas to dinner. The galabeya party
didn't turn out to be a party at all, but only a chance for people to take
pictures of each other in costume. Incidentally, three other women wore
galabeyas identical to Jane's. We left the party at 22:00 to retire.
I haven't mentioned that every
night after our cabin steward turned down our
beds, we found a towel on one of the beds, folded
and twisted into some animal shape (swan, kitten,
cobra, etc.). Tonight as we opened our door, we
were greeted by a "towel monkey" hanging from a
ceiling panel.
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