no salt here

Making foul the best tasting  (fool)  is made this way  cooked slowly overnight in the household rubbish including what waste comes from the animals backsides. Beans mixed with herbs and spices.


another salesman in the village.
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This guy is the tree cleaner the matting from the tree has many uses, used as a cloth to wash . made into all types of brushes  brooms paint Etc the branches also have a number of uses first to make chairs and tables  crates for fruit and vegetables, folds (pens) for the animals wattling for wall etc, etc,
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 The old pump house chimney as you get closer it looks like a forgotten relic in the middle of the village  now a place for dumping the rubbish that's if the village people can be bothered  to step out of the front door to tip their  rubbish,  a place that houses snakes rats and other wildlife inside, gone has any piece of metal that would have any monitory value, only the steel bends are left just incase someone will need them and therefore will have more value than scrap iron.

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 the opening seen in the base of the chimney
this a shot looking up the inside of the chimney  and it took all my will power to stop me climbing up there  to get a surrounding areal view A few years ago I would not have even thought about it  but I know my back would have given in half way up  and unlike a ladder with poles each side of the rungs  if I did get stuck
I could have slid down to safety .  we must grow old gracefully and give in. such is life.
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The whole of this buildings windows and doors have been bricked up  not that this will hinder the thieves of Egypt ..  the seem to have the God  given  right to take anything,  Ah  its a gift from Allah.
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Looking up from what was the grand entrance into the pump house, 
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The villagers view of the Building. 

Not  sure if this is the older of the two pump houses  but its in bad disrepair
 the land around and inside has been filled in  and we are now looking at what was the first floor

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Inside the floor has been filled with rubbish  so none of the old plinths etc that the old machines stood on are visable  the brickwork with the hole in it  is the chimney base and the opening for the fire is another 2 metres down in the infill. this building dates back to the mid 1800s  and has I would think been derelict since the late 20s when mechanical pumps came into use..  I do not know what these steam engines where fired up with but wood is not  ready available in Egypt  never has been even the Pharaos brought timber in from Lebanon and other countries. And I have not heard that coal has been mined here  but the coals could have been brought by barge down the Nile as all these pump houses just like the Temples were built by the Nile.

Even the roof timbers are made from palm trees  these are not a good burner the tend to smoke  not heat up and would not have been any use to heat up the huge boilers to drive the beam engine pumps that could lift up to 200 gallons of water into the canals in one stroke  these pump houses only had one use  and that was for irrigation of the land. the people used the Nile for everything they came to the Nile for drinking water, ablutions and bathing. everything was washed in the Nile including the domestic animals, the water was always clean because it flows so fast.  that was before they built the Dams te regulate its waters,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_Dam
 they say themselves  NO NILE NO EGYPT.  and its a pity the mentality has gone  to keep the Nile Clean.

Half filled in is the pit where once the pipes lay just a trap now for snakes and the children that wish to piss in it

  Views from the old pump house of the Nile 

View of what was the ramp or loading area from the Nile

A new born Donkey foal

 A second view at the bread oven   its sole purpose is to cook bread  not to burn rubbish even though they use plastic and whatever the can find to heat these ovens up. the worst thing they use now is polystyrene from packages that foul acrid smell and black pieces hovering in the air and getting on peoples chests, but no thought of that here  these are simple people  and this stuff makes good quick heat . hooray for polystyrene coming to Egypt they say?%$&"


The front door an excelent bit of craftmanship using local materials
one  side  of the door the wall has sunk 4" 


The scenery here on the outscirts of Luxor City is supperb and one of the reasons I chose to live here and
its simple way of life,  back in 2002 I did not know or realize how simple the people are,

the fruit and veg man

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No we are not on the riviera this is the Nile at Luxor the Nile is at its lowest and dirtiest
no swimming for us foreigners unless we need a dose of dysentery or a mouth infection,


 I could be on a tropical Island

 Or even a deserted Island 

 Or crossing the Atlantic  watching the wake from the propellers of a huge ocean liner

but here I am in Luxor Egypt cropping photos to show you how Nice this place is
and its  a shame because this place I chose to live has so much going for it  but the culture of the natives spoil its beauty,   but I can find Quiet places and have my dreams.