boats and balloons in the mist

25/9/10 6.30 in the morning,  Balloon over the West Bank of Luxor  with the Ibis coming in to the wetlands

 here I was sitting in the dew in the wetlands at 5.30 in the morning.

5.30 Dahbia sail boat with its tug being towed up the nile after a cruise to Aswan,

6.00 mooring up

Dahabia turning in to moor up  

sand barge heading upstream

,

garbage boat  heading out to service the cruisers

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Ibis   in the  wetlands the rest of the Ibis will have a special page on  birdinginegypt.

crossing over

Very strange day today up at 4.30, cup of tea   and realized my left foot was sore to stand on.  what with my slipped discs and back probs its als a bit of an effort to look under my foot  but I stood up raised my foot on the bed  to see what the problem was . and sure enough I had picked a splinter up  and it had started to fester. cut it open with the nail scissors  and out came the puss,  bandaged it up after putting some germoline on. drank me tea and off I went, hoping to get to the reed beds of the wetlands before sunup.first greeting was another puss. and its a wonder she does not get some bad cuts from the garbage. but she looked quite healthy and pleased to see someone else up and about, miow.

 first shot of the moon on the Ferry crossing,
then later as the sun was about to come up.  I got a night shot of the harvest moon

was not long before i realized it was going to be cloudy after a month of blue skies the one day I want a blue sky, its cloudy,

'
.its even to early for the nile flower to open

but its ok it was a treat being out so early we even had dew this morning, the birds had started to land  even though the  sun was not in the right place for decent shots, the phoyos are on  birding in egypt blogspot click here ,

 bird no 75, but need help with its id please,
back to the flat  but first i wanted to see how the new crossing was coming along
 
went on the footbridge to get a photo. and there was a Coptic funeral. then one thinks how

short life is.

.

the new coptic church  been in this build stage for the past 2 years,

Give us this day our daily bread.  so we can put it out on the bench in the street.

railway crossing.

Market day the busiest day of the week. and they close the railway level crossing
the busiest time is between 9 and 11, two hours,
its 10 minutes to nine and the narrow part was left open for bicycles and pedestrians,
just as I was about to cross when they closed the whole entrance,

barrier is built, thats to keep everybody out

the footbridge over the lines is 50yards away, and my usual way to the market area/

these signals always seem to be in the same position,,,
the road bridge is 200 yards away but to far for the cyclists,



work is under way on the crossing, and local people making a lot of noise arguing with the police wondering why they cannot cross to the market area with their goods to sell,

ok chuk not far to go





ducks,geese hens, rabbits and turkeys

dried bread for poultry food for sale

water melons 5 le per kilo one of them is about 10 killo.

little bunny wabits for sale

door to door milk delivery

woman heading off with the sheep to market.
wed  the crossing is still clossed just like england,s fine rail network. there are more chiefs than indians,


and silly buggers that take no notice of danger warnings


view from the new road bridge towards the crossing 

whats left of the steam era,

As a retired builder,My interest vary and when I see a victorian construction like this water tank
I wonder how it came to be here in Egypt. I came across this rather interesting piece of architectural history on a walk I did behind the Luxor train station the railway was quite late coming to the nile delta of upper Egypt this dates back to late victoria so could be as late as 1901. there is a railway museum in Cairo, and a must visit for me within the next month of my travels around Egypt,

rail museum cairo link

This piece of engineering I know a little bit more about,
The old Victorian water tank that was used to fill the trains up with water, (For steam) by the late 1960s was to far from the railway line;- trains had to unhook and make a detour to the tank to be filled up adding a further 1 hour to the journey, so it was decided to build a new one on the main line where the steam train could stop and fill up from the new water tank. the tank was completed 6 months before the regions rail network bought new diesel powered trains, the steam trains and its water tanks became obsolete. The water tanks are of no use for domestic water storage as most buildings in luxor are more than two storeys high. in the lower photo there is a new water tower in the distance, and of course today's modern water plants are using electric pumps to pump water around its pipe system. so these night storage tanks are also obsolete. in the main towns that have updated the water supply system.

Even the old telephone poles can still be seen along the railway lines
only the top pots are used to hold the wires with the new addition on the topmost for the electricity power lines. a quite recent thing in this part of Egypt. now they have the hydro electricity Dam in Aswan, for those interested in the high dam here is a link,,,,here.

Posted by Life in Egypt at 11:11 AM 0 comments