A felucca, the lateen-sailed boat of the Nile, offers the slowest and finest way to drift past Aswan's islands and temples.
Sailing the Nile the old way
A felucca is the traditional wooden sailboat of the Nile, and a night aboard one near Aswan is the antidote to the cruise-ship version of Egypt. There is no engine and no schedule — the boatman reads the wind, you lie back on cushions, and the river slides by past palm-fringed islands and villages where children wave from the bank.
As the sun drops, the sails glow and the temperature finally eases. Dinner is simple, cooked on board, eaten by lamplight.
A night on the water
- Sail up to Elephantine Island and the Nubian villages with their painted houses.
- Bring a warm layer — desert nights are cold even when the days are furnace-hot.
- Sleep on deck under a mosquito net and wake to mist rising off the river.
It is rustic, unhurried and gloriously low-tech. For a night or two, the felucca strips Egypt back to wind, water and a horizon of date palms — the way travellers have crossed this stretch of the Nile for centuries.
