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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Rediscovering Aswan
By Mursi Saad El-Din
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters
It has been some time since I was in Aswan, a city for which I hold many fond memories. My recent visit to view the works of international and Egyptian sculptors participating in the fifth Aswan Sculpture Symposium had me thinking about this wonderful city's wasted tourist potential.
I find it so surprising that in today's tourist boom, Aswan continually fails to be presented as a destination in itself, instead being relegated to a mere transit point. Nile-cruising tourists may stop at Aswan for a day or night after spending time in Luxor or Abu Simbel. Visitors are whisked in for just long enough to be taken to the temple of Philae and a drive-by glimpse of the High Dam before they either embark on a three-day Nile or Lake Nasser cruise, or fly back to Cairo. What a waste.
Consider how the typical tourist must feel after the onslaught of the usual Egypt tour. After a stay in Cairo, with its myriad monuments spanning a staggering swathe of Egypt's history and its deafening noise and unruly traffic, come hectic days taking in the temples of Luxor and possibly Abu Simbel. Aswan is the perfect haven amidst this chaos, with its warm weather pleasantly tempered by breezes drifting off the Nile and white-sailed feluccas gliding on the waters. A tree-lined corniche (Nile-side road) and exotic markets make for a soothing sojourn, but today's visitor finds that there is hardly time to recuperate before moving on.
In the past, people knew better. Aswan was a resort for writers and British administrators in the 1920s and was known as a winter destination throughout the world. The Cataract Hotel was then the prime destination, hosting such illustrious guests as Sir Winston Churchill and the Agha Khan.
Winding steps lead to a finely laid out garden, where the scent of jasmine wafted on the breeze and one could descend to the river to sail across to the Agha Khan Mausoleum, perched on a hill on the opposite bank of the Nile. It was well-known then that the Begum (the Agha Khan's widow) would go there every morning to place a red rose on his tomb. It was said that no one ever saw her make her pilgrimage; that she always went there at dawn, like a ghost. And rumour had it that whoever did see her, by chance, met an untimely death.
Inaugurated in 1899, the Old Cataract Hotel, with its splendid dining room and great Mamelouke dome, can boast some pretty important guests, including King Farouk, Grace Kelley, British royalty and, in modern times, Princess Diana, President Mitterand and Imelda Marcos, wife of the former Philippine president. Visitors traditionally took afternoon tea on the hotel's elegant terrace overlooking Elephantine Island, with its great granite rocks turning red or black with shifting light. Adorned with palm groves, the island hosts an ancient Nilometer and a small archaeological museum.
In the good old days, there was time to enjoy Aswan and take in the spirit of the city; to sail around the islands at sunset, meander in the markets and walk through the Nubian villages of Elephantine. Everything that once drew an international set to this serene city remains there to be enjoyed, but today it is one mad rush.
Aswan has so much to offer both in historical monuments and in what may be described as "seasonal events," yet the city's potential appeal is squandered by modern tour operators who assume tourists are simply not interested. In the meantime, the tourist is missing out. Which brings me to one seasonal event that would probably be of interest to visitors -- the Aswan International Sculpture Symposium, which takes place from February to April each year.
I envisage promotion of the event as part of a whole tourist programme. A visitor during this three-month period could be taken to the granite quarries where rock has been extracted for the construction of Egypt's great monuments throughout the millennia. Tourists could visit the area next to Aswan's Basma Hotel, where they could watch the artists at work on their pieces for the symposium, and then on to the open-air museum on top of a hill overlooking the city, where the results of the sculptors' endeavours are displayed.
Aswan is famous for its granite quarries, which come in shades ranging from pink to red, gray to black and vary in texture fine-grained to heavy-grained. Here is an opportunity to combine it into a cultural tour. It is fascinating to watch the cutting of granite with modern drills and compare the process to that of the past, when rock was hammered out of the quarries with great balls of dolerite (the hardest of stones) by brute force.
Sculptors at the Aswan Sculpture Symposium turn the city's world-famous granite into a yearly open-air display of modern art
Tourists are missing out on so many unique experiences. A felucca trip to Kitchener's Island (today's Plants Island), with its huge botanical garden or the Palace of Culture, where folk dance troupes perform, is not on the tourist agenda because travel agencies rush their groups in and out of Aswan heading somewhere else. The list goes on. The wondrous new Nubian Museum, which was inaugurated in 1997, is a prime example of a missed opportunity.
Gustave Flaubert in his travels in 1850 described Aswan as a "negro landscape." Today it remains decidedly Nubian in spirit, not only because of the number of Nubians who settled in Aswan following the progressive inundation of their land during the construction (and heightening) of the original Aswan Dam and more recent High Dam, but also because some of the monuments rescued from Nubia during the UNESCO salvage operations in the 1960s are today displayed in the remarkable Nubian Museum.
How sad that this great museum, which is frequented by large numbers of Nubians -- men, women and children who are proud to see their heritage honoured -- is seldom visited by tourists. They simply have no time. The Nubian Museum is not only a masterpiece of architecture, but it contains a remarkable collection that covers all aspects of Nubian history from pre-dynastic times to modern society.
What struck me while visiting Aswan after such a long time was its tragic neglect by those who promote tourism. Here is a ready-made product with a wide variety of cultural and recreational possibilities. It is our job to change the tide and foster an interest in this worthy city.
My advice: take another look at Aswan. Take time. You will not be disappointed.
