Up the Nile: Day 5 (Aswan)

Finally I got a good rest after staying up all night carrying on with other solo travelers and the hotel staff in Luxor!  I slept in luxuriously late my first full day in Aswan, before strolling down the Corniche.  Once there I heard an American couple behind me arguing with one of the many felucca captains who lurk along the water trying to sell you on a felucca.  Figuring I could perhaps help, or maybe join them, I turned around and asked where they were going, to which they said somewhere I didn't know.  I'm always up for an adventure though so I offered to share with them, getting round to figuring out that we were heading across to the West Bank to visit the Monastery of St. Simeon.  The monastery turned out to be about a 20 in walk uphill from the water straight into the desert, resting on a hard shelf above the soft dunes beyond.  It's a striking and amazing ruin now, but was apparently quite the thriving settlement back in the day.

The rest of the day was spent chatting, drinking, and eating on floating restaurants and relaxing by the pool getting homework done before collapsing into bed early once again.