It’s a little before 7am and all is quiet on the River Nile. The drove of children who can usually be seen – and heard – enthusiastically splashing and jumping for our attention have been herded away for the morning, leaving us to cruise the mirrored waters to Aswan in near silence. The temperature is just coming up to 30 degrees and as I sip my coffee, drinking in views of the palm-studded riverbank, it is the coolest and calmest I have felt in days.
I imagine Queen Nefertari – or any of the seven Cleopatras – making this same journey, breathing in the tranquil air and gazing upon the verdant green shores, which glow in contrast to the desert horizon. Not for the first time, my mind stretches and contracts trying to grasp just how much life and history has played out on this river. Mental gymnastics are a daily activity on any tour of Egypt, where mind-blowing facts and figures are casually lobbed at you on a near-hourly basis. As I rejuvenate in the morning serenity, I am still processing just how long 3000 years really is. Today, we are still closer in time to Cleopatra and the final days of ancient Egypt than she was to the first Pharaohs
