Port Out, Starboard Home

It's the posh, posh travelin' life
The travelin' life for me.
First cabin and captain's table
Real company.
Pardon the dust of the upper crust
(And fetch us a cup of tea)
For it's port out, starboard home
Posh with a capital P, O, S, H:
Posh.

    Today may deserve two entries: one before we arrive at Luxor (around 3pm), and one after we finish our daily excursions. 

    A luxury river cruise up the Nile is exactly as posh as it sounds. It's not a large thing, and that's what I love. Three floors of guestrooms with every amenity you'd desire. Full bathroom, laundry service, room service, housekeeping,  gift shop, a massage (might want to pass on that, warns Hany), gourmet buffets three times a day in a spacious dining room with our assigned table for nine. Reception area with a courteous front desk and an enormous chandelier hanging from the second floor ceiling. A lounge with a full bar and small dance floor, a sun deck with another bar and plenty of seating under the shade. A tiny pool on the deck, most of which is about a foot deep, with a deeper area at one end. 

    Tour groups and families with kids are our traveling companions, speaking in all matters of tongue. It certainly doesn't feel crowded, even when we gather for meals of beef, chicken, pasta, soups, veggies, fruits, salads, and a mountain of desserts. The carving station offered whole chickens stuffed with sautéed onions for lunch yesterday; last night, they were serving veal.

    And that's only what's on the boat itself. Outside, we glide silently up the wide Nile River, with villages and docks and plenty of greenspace along the banks. Local people playing in the shallow waters, livestock grazing on the sparse stretches of grass, shantytowns and huts for a spell, then shiny neon of the luxury hotels alongside the ports.

    Overall it's not a tall ship: it swims under the highway bridges easy enough. And there are plenty of them running the same route, but they all stay away from each other until it's time to dock. Then they sidle up to each other three deep, so that out my large window, I get to view another cruise boat just two feet away. Passengers board by walking through one lobby to the next lobby, all exterior doors lining up nicely. (P.S. This morning, our boats are stacked six deep, as snug as hotdogs in a package.)

    We are the big dogs on the water. Feluccas and water taxis scurry around us, but we dominate the center of the mighty river. Still, we do it like a row of ducks, hardly leaving a wake behind us. Last night, a party boat bejeweled with technicolor lights and an awesome sound system glided with us, each side waving and cheering the other.

    As we exit the ship each day, the steward gives each of us a credit-card-sized "boarding pass" to be returned upon our re-boarding. An easy way to keep a head count, I presume. To not leave anyone behind, left standing on the wide docks, empty of riverboats after they peel away effortlessly, like playing cards dealt into the river's current.

    Today we glide from Edfu to Luxor, after passing through the locks at Esna, which we prepare to watch curiously. Tonight will be our final on the water, docked at Luxor. Tomorrow we return to our land-based tour. Like waking up from a dream.