Countless myths surround the Nile. Even as a child I read Rüdiger Nehberg’s Adventure on the Blue Nile and For a long time the project to paddle the Nile with the SUP lay then in the drawer.
Our spirit of discovery was hoping for an idyllic paddle across Egypt’s historic and dreamlike river, but not quite as extreme as Rüdiger Nehberg, as we ruled out the crocodiles factor by starting north of the High Dam in Aswan. In order to have an easy start, we were accompanied by a felucca, a traditional sailing boat, for the first 5 days.
The feluccas found it difficult to aim the long way from Luxor because too many permits were needed, the way back was too far and the wind was decreasing towards the north. Our paddling direction was dictated by the current from south to north, which unfortunately is north wind, contrary to the most common wind direction. So the conclusion was: paddle with the current, but against the wind. We didn’t know how many kilometers a day are feasible, because this always depends strongly on the current and wind strength.
We were equipped with a GTS Sportstourer 13.0, the GTS Cruiser 11.6 and two light GTS Narrow paddles.
Again and again we were stopped by fishermen who asked us where we came from and where we wanted to go. They couldn’t believe we were going by SUP. We landed on a small island in the Nile at sunset – it was already dark by 5.30pm. Osama, the cook, and Mahmoud, our captain, prepared dinner on the felucca. Since January nights can get pretty cold even in Egypt, we built a fire on the island and our Nubian boat crew drummed and sang their way warm. If you sleep on the boat, you wake up with the sunrise. But in winter the nights and early mornings are very fresh – so our boat crew always crawled out from under their blankets only when the sun already had enough power to warm them.
That is, with a relaxed holiday time of 9 am, we had breakfast. During the construction of the controversial Aswan Dam, more than 100,000 Nubians were forcibly relocated to newly built villages 45 km north of Aswan. The resettlement was successful. Nubians have maintained their cultural identity but have a better standard of living than their grandparents’ generation and access to better education.
It’s always the same pattern that we noticed on our SUP vacation – irrigation canals, into which water is pumped from the Nile, create a 1-2 km wide green garden of palm groves and vegetable fields. The village then stands directly behind it, so as not to waste fertile soil on the border of the great sand sea of the Sahara.
Our destination on day 2 of the Stand Up Paddle Tour was Kom Ombo 47 km north of Aswan.
With a slight headwind and with all our little stops, we paddled about 5-6 km in an hour. We were often invited for tea by fishermen who have gas stoves on their boats, so we docked the SUPs in the middle of the Nile at fishing boats for tea time. Shortly before Kom Ombo we saw more camels on the banks of the Nile. We stopped in Daraw, because on weekends there is one of the biggest camel markets in Egypt. The camels come from Sudan and are shipped on trucks to Cairo, where they are slaughtered for camel meat. At sunset we reached the temple of Kom Ombo, which is located directly on the banks of the Nile.
We caused a bit of a stir when we docked our SUPs right between the Nile cruise ships. Since our felucca had to cruise in the light headwind and was moving slower than us, we had time to meet people along the way or discover forgotten, hidden temples right on the shore. So we found 60km north of Aswan a temple at Gebel el-Silsila hidden in the reeds, clearly less frequented by mass tourism than Kom Ombo, because here at most the feluccas stop.
“We reached the temple of Kom Ombo at sunset.«
Nile cruise ships stop at most for a photo of the ship. The rocks of the east and west desert come so close together here that the Nile valley becomes particularly narrow, so you can have a relaxed day on the SUP as you hardly need to paddle due to the strong current. Sandstone has been quarried here since the oldest historical times. Numerous Upper Egyptian temples were built from the sandstone of these quarries. The stones were shipped to Karnak, Luxor, Kom Ombo, Esna, Edfu and many other places in Upper Egypt. In open-cast mining, cuts up to twenty metres high were sometimes driven into the rock in order to obtain the coveted building material.
We hid our boards in the reeds and headed out.
With a bit of luck, the temple guards often unlock tombs or locked temple doors. The days on the Nile were similar, the landscape was dominated by donkeys and cows, sometimes camels, grazing on the banks. Banana and sugar cane plantations as well as date palm groves alternated, behind them one could see the sand dunes of the desert. Every hour we heard the honking of the train, which connects Cairo and Aswan and is probably the fastest means of transport along the Nile after the plane. In Esna we said goodbye to our boat crew: our bed and luggage transport, which had been following us so to speak, now left us and we paddled on solo without boat support. Our minimal luggage consisted of 2 sleeping bags, 3 t-shirts, toothbrush, money, cell phones and cameras. North of Esna there were clearly less feluccas, now and then still Dahabiyas, the Nile houseboats, drove past us, but otherwise it became clearly calmer here on the river.
The cruise ships passed us in columns of 6 or 7 at most in the morning or evening, as they usually dock at the temples in the morning and sail from place to place at night.
With 25-30 km per day we made good progress, bought bread, feta cheese and tomatoes in small shops on the shore and learned that there is always time for a tea. The kids were proud every time they got to try out our SUPs or we took them for a little paddle on our boards. We spent the night in banana plantations or undisturbed on the islands in the Nile on our boards in sleeping bags. The GTS boards are an excellent bed substitute when camping. The souks of the cities are a good place to stock up on provisions. For those interested in history, there are countless temples and tombs to explore off the tourist trail besides Edfu & Esna, such as El Kab or the Al Kola pyramid. So we spent the non-paddleable day with almost 30 knots of wind as amateur archaeologists. It is unbelievable how well preserved these 3000-3500 year old witnesses of history are.
It is amazing how colourful and detailed the drawings are, depicting life on the Nile at that time. Our last day towards Luxor – 30 km to be paddled – was rewarded with good current and tail wind and so we were already at noon and thus 3 hours earlier than expected at the Luxor bridge. From then on we were accompanied for the first time by a boat of the tourist police. Here the extent of the lack of tourism since the revolution and now after Corona became clear. About 50 cruise ships lay stranded at the city entrance to Luxor on the banks of the Nile.
Our tourist police boat escorted us straight to the hotel where we checked in via SUP, as many of the hotels are built right on the shore. After 9 days on the Nile (one of them not paddleable) and 200 paddled kilometers between Aswan and Luxor we saw the sun sink over the west bank for the last time. With many interesting stories, little adventures and a thousand new impressions we finally ended our tour with a farewell paddle to the western shore to visit the Valley of the Kings and the Colossi of Memnon as well as the Temple of Hatshepsut by bicycle.
Text & Pictures: Kathrin Borgwardt
Last day – On the ninth day of the Amazon SUP Adventure Tour, the travelers observed large macaws (parrots) early in the morning and everyone
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