Beautiful sunrise.

Yesterday was a day on the river with a stop around noon for swimming and then stopping around 4 pm for swimming and a “walk” before dinner.

We all had our swim in the Nile at noon. It’s shockingly cold and the current is strong – it takes your breath when you hit the water. The way it works is that the tug takes us a distance south; we jump in and either float or swim back to the boat. This is with the current, but still there is the need to work cross-current to get to the boat and keep from by-passing it. I think Jim and I are done with this activity even though we used rings. The crew from the boat are excellent swimmers and not only do they serve us our meals; make up the cabins; joke around with us; they are also lifeguards!!

Let’s address the afternoon walk. If the Nile swimming constitutes lunacy, this activity was, not not well thought out by yours truly. It was described as a walk in the desert, but it turned out to be more of Lawrence of Arabia type trek. Jump on the tug to head north about a mile; Jump off to the side and walk through a village; enter the desert straight into the 5 pm setting sun; trek across a wide desert area to a rocky outcropping with “some shade”. Jim and Frances wisely declined, but Mary and I jumped aboard.

It is very hard to describe how dry your mouth can become in this situation!

At the end of the day, everyone made it back safe and sound and no worse for the experience, but I definitely should have asked more questions!