A short travel vlog by Nate and Kara Buchanan documenting Day 1 of a six-day Nile River cruise beginning in Luxor. They briefly tour the Esna temple (noting it was largely buried and required excavation), board a small, unique sail/river cruise boat (cabins identified by colors, top deck social area, no steering wheel—rudder controlled manually), sail and tie up early, then visit a nearby farm/village where they try plowing, meet local children, and end with a humorous hieroglyph translation. The video emphasizes relaxed pacing and off-the-beaten-path experiences.
Questions this video answers
Six days.
14 years.
About 20 people.
A couple hundred meters.
"The fish ate the male parts of the man."
Chapters
Today we are leaving Luxor and we are getting on a boat to start our six day cruise up the Nile.
All right, about an hour later we're in Esta.
Before we jump on the boat, we are going on a quick tour of a temple located here in the city.
There is a wonderful breeze on the Nile and It is not 114 degrees yet. So I'm very happy we're doing this now.
So this is the Esna temple. The crazy thing is, is that when they found it, it was actually almost completely buried. We're only a couple hundred meters away from the Nile right now. And when it FL all the silk comes and it basically has buried this entire town. So they had to spend 14 years excavating this temple to get it to what you're seeing right now.
This crazy looking boat is our home for the next five nights.
This is the most unique boat that we have ever been on. It's like half sailboat, half river cruise.
Boat and it's huge. And the top deck is super windy. I think this is where everybody like hangs out. I don't know who everybody is yet. This boat holds about 20 people, I think, and we don't know how many people are on it with us yet.
If the wind keeps blowing like this though, we're going to make it to Aswan really quickly.
These are all the cabins and there are no room numbers. There's just little rivets on the door. So you just remember your color.
Like preschool.
Wait, are we blue?
I thought it was like preschool.
Yes, we are.
This is our beautiful white room and that's the bathroom.
And that's about it. This is the indoor hangout area slash library. And now I think it's time for lunch. But we have not found food yet.
Sailing away.
So this is fascinating. This boat actually doesn't have a steering wheel. Instead, this guy back here is sitting on just a big rudder and he's the one steering the boat right now. You have a big job now? I have the most important job on the boat.
Oh, I think I'm actually turning this right now.
Oh my gosh.
You tell me when to stop. Oh, the tugboat that's pulling us is turning. I gotta be on my game.
Where's he going?
Okay, I better give you your job back. You better? Harder than that.
That's what they told. We saw it.
We officially tied up for the night and it's only about three in the afternoon. Nobody has moved a muscle. Everybody's just up here on the top deck relaxing, reading, napping, I am not complaining. I feel like on a lot of our cruises, the itinerary has so much packed in that we don't ever have time to just enjoy the boat. And I don't think that's going to be a problem this week. What do you think?
Got a good book. Cannot be more content.
Yes, please.
Rest time is over, and we're going to go explore. Explore this local area neighborhood, village.
Nate's going to try out the cow plow.
Then come to. Come over here. What are you doing?
Lift it up. Lift it up. Lift it up here. Lift it up and pull it over here.
Now you've got it. Now you're holding up Tennessee.
You can see how it's not easy, is it?
I feel like I'm making your job much harder. If anyone thinks it's easy, they can try it. Wait, you're going off. You're going off.
You'Re going off.
Thank you very much. That's hard work. That line of crops will forever be crooked. He's doing it with one hand. And I was, like, using all of my might to try to steer it where I wanted it to go.
Feeling out of breath was hard work.
That was a fun start to the evening. Just to be clear, this is not like a tourist attraction. These guys were actually just plowing their field and. Let me help for a minute. Actually hurt. I did not help for sure.
So at this point, we've gotten to do a few of these local river cruises, and one of our favorite parts about them is just how much they allow you to kind of get off the beaten tourist path. Like, there's no roads that lead to this place. And it really doesn't make sense for tourists to go out of their way to come here. But if you come here on a river cruise, you just kind of have this opportunity to go and just observe life in a place that's just pretty much untouched by tourism.
We are just walking through this family's farm right now with mango trees and banana trees, and there's cows and donkeys walking around. There's nobody selling us anything because nobody comes here. Like, this is Egypt.
If there's nothing like here that you're supposed to see. Like, there's no, like, temples or anything like that. But that's what I almost enjoy about it.
There's nothing wrong with touristy things. We are all about touristy things. But it's fun to switch it up and get to see how people really live who aren't in the tourism industry.
And you don't get opportunities like this very often.
Did you hear.
It?
Hello. Hello.
Hello.
Bye baby girl.
The local kids were super happy to see us. They were so cute.
Bye.
They're all practicing their English. I just love it. I just want to take them with me.
It was a great first day on the Nile. We're heading back to the ship now and tomorrow we'll be in a new place.
Our guide just translated this hieroglyphics and says that it says the fish ate the male parts of the man.
Hey, real quick before you go. In case you've ever been curious about how much money we make or how much money we spend spend while traveling full time. I just finished putting together our quarter two income and expense report. I've been putting these reports together ever since July of 2016. So if you've ever been curious about that, I'll leave a link in the description below and you can go check them out.
