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Activities
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Sailing on the river
in a
felucca
is a relaxing way to spend an afternoon, while a sunset cruise is the perfect way to end the day. Expect to pay about ?E20 an hour for a boat carrying two people, ?E30 upwards for a craft seating six or seven. The favoured destination is
Banana Island
(
Gezira el-Mozh),
a lush peninsula 4km upriver, where visitors are charged ?E5 apiece to land. There are souvenir and drinks stalls, and lads who hijack the clothes of tourists stripping to swim and hold them to ransom. The round trip takes between two and three hours depending on the wind, and costs ?E50 per boatload. To the felucca men's dismay,
motorboat cruises
are an increasingly popular alternative. Though package tourists are gulled into paying ?10/US$20 a head for cruises on the
Lotus
boat, you should be able to rent a smaller
zobak
for ?E40 an hour by negotiating directly with boatmen (for more on cruises between Luxor and Aswan, see p.392). The best felucca and
zobak
captains are allocated berths below Luxor Temple and the
Winter Palace;
less skilled ones tie up nearer the
Etap
and
Novotel.
Smara of the
African Queen
is a good felucca captain.
Most hotels with swimming pools let non-residents use them. The Windsor, Philippe, New Emilio and Shady charge ?E7 admission; the Luxor Sheraton ?E20; the Gaddis and Sonesta St. George ?E25; and the Winter Palace charges ?E50. The Luxor (?E10), Mercure Inn and Novotel (?E15), Bella-Donna Club Med (?E18) and Isis (?E25) levy a minimum charge for snacks and drinks, while the entry price at the Etap (?E25) includes a drink or snacks. There are tennis courts at the Winter Palace, Luxor Sheraton and Nile Hilton, while horse-riding on the west bank can be arranged through the Etap (?E55; 2hr), or by visiting one of the stables in Gezira, where you should be able to negotiate the price to ?E10 an hour. The Pharaonic and Arabian stables both have Arabian thoroughbreds. You can play billiards in the King's Head Pub (?E10), the Nile Hilton (?E20) or the Luxor (?E15). The Luxor has the nicest billiards room after the Winter Palace 's, which is not for use by non-residents but worth a look for its Edwardian splendour.
Finally, if money is no object, there's the luxury of drifting over the Necropolis in a
hot-air balloon
, which affords an awesome view of the temples, villages and mountains; to get the best photographic results use 200 or 250 ASA film. Cruising at 300 metres, you can smell the cooking fires and donkeys and overhear conversations below, in an eerie silence punctuated by the roar of the balloon's gas-burners. The course is determined by meteorological conditions and the skill of the pilot, so each flight is different - but you'll probably spend about an hour aloft. The two balloon companies operating in Luxor are fully insured and CAA-approved. Hod-Hod Soliman (tel & fax 095/370-116) is a locally based firm with a British pilot, while Balloons Over Egypt (BOE; tel 095/376-515) holds a franchise from Virgin. Both offer two or three flights daily in season (Oct-May), subject to cancellation at short notice. BOE charges US$250 per person, including a champagne breakfast or buffet in the desert; Hod-Hod trips cost US$200, with a slap-up breakfast at the
Movenpick.
Bookings can be made through travel agents, or by phone; BOE is also represented at the
Isis
and
Hilton
hotels. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Egypt,
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