I'm in Egypt at the moment. We're in Dahab, on the Sinai peninsular - but we spent several weeks travelling on the Nile from Cairo to Aswan and Luxor before we got here.
The experience that really brought home the importance of the Nile was taking the overnight train from Cairo to Aswan. You wake up in the morning to sunrise over the Nile. If you look out of the left hand window of the train, you see desert - nothing but sand and rocks. If you look out of the right hand window, you see literally just a few hundred metres of lush green farmland followed by the expanse of the river. It makes you realise that a large chunk of Egypt's usable land is hundreds of miles long but less than half a mile wide.
Great video. I find it depressing that they couldn't think of anything better to do with that fertile land than to put a highway along the middle of it.
From Luxor onwards the fertile band is substantially wider, more like 20km, as can be seen on Google Maps.
Does anyone know why the desert of North Africa is so... desert? - In Australia, even the deserts, which are supposed to be some of the driest in the world, in terms of rainfall, have far more vegetation. See here for an example:
I just returned from a very similar tour (Cairo to Aswan to Luxor, skipped Dahab), probably one week before you. The tour was in Dahab last week. Maybe we crossed paths as our group was leaving and your group was coming.
I took the hot air ballon option in the Valley of the Kings, and from the basket you could see the Nile. Turn a little bit, and you see the farmlands, and turn some more you would see the desert.
At a wide angle, I was able to take a picture of all three in one shot. The Nile is truly the lifeblood of the region.
I was in Kenya a couple of weeks ago and the flight we took flew south from Luxor in Egypt - what stunned me is how empty that region is - literally nothing but sand and rock for hour upon hour with the thin sliver of the Nile running through it.
Nothing drives home the beauty, the fragility, and somehow the hospitality of the country like this image.
I didn't get to see Luxor or Aswan (it was out of season), and I missed Alex because I ran out of money. The time I spent in Cairo, Sharm, Giza, Ainh-Soknah, and 6th of October City changed my life.
To anyone considering it: if you have the chance to travel, do it. Nothing makes the world seem smaller and the people seem closer.
The experience that really brought home the importance of the Nile was taking the overnight train from Cairo to Aswan. You wake up in the morning to sunrise over the Nile. If you look out of the left hand window of the train, you see desert - nothing but sand and rocks. If you look out of the right hand window, you see literally just a few hundred metres of lush green farmland followed by the expanse of the river. It makes you realise that a large chunk of Egypt's usable land is hundreds of miles long but less than half a mile wide.