Spirit Quest Tours is honored to have been the first American company to offer this unique and exclusive experience as a part of "Quest for the Truth IV" in May of 2008. 

Join us aboard the Afandina once again, by special arrangement!  Click here for all the details.

The revival of the traditional way of sailing along the Nile

By Robert Bauval

In this brand new millennium in which we all live in there is a growing concern about the future and wellbeing of our planet. Responsible people are showing more and more concern for the threats that are looming high: global warming, pollution, and depletion of our energy resources. Many successful businessmen from different countries have begun to ‘pay back’ by sponsoring ‘green’ projects, from the building of commercial jet planes to natural and organic farming. Yet how often we forget that the most important and vital of Nature’s gifts are the water that we drink and the air that we breathe. Without water and air we cannot live, nothing can live, not even the most robust of creature or plant. My friend Mohammad Nazmy, President of Quest Travel in Cairo, has decided to do his bit. He is a man with a vision; and this vision is to remind us of how important the air, clean air, is to all human beings and all life on earth. He has decided to ‘pay back’ with the ‘Afandina’ Project: the building of a traditional Nile ship powered by the desert winds as in the days of old to carry his share of foreign visitors along the ancient river. With his jovial nature and altruistic passion for the world, Mohamad Nazmy is truly the ‘Al Gore of the Nile’. 

“I have invested in this project nearly all the profits I have made in the last ten years,” says Nazmy, “because as a tour operator I have witnessed the ever growing pollution of our cities and countryside caused by the massive growth in traffic, especially the shipping traffic on the Upper Nile. I am not saying that we do not need to run Nile cruises with motorized ships, but surely three hundred ships with multi-thousand horsepower motors is not a sustainable economy. We sooner or later will have to look into the alternatives for the sake of our children and the good health of our land. Afandina is a step in the right direction and I hope that it may inspire others to follow suit and look for solutions to this problem of air-pollution.”

The Afandina

Since time immemorial the ancient dwellers of the Nile Valley have been acutely aware of the preciousness of water and the air. The Nile was sacred, and its waters were personified by the god Hapy. And so, too, was the air, which was personified by the god Shu who held up the sky-goddess with his hands. ‘Egypt is the gift of the Nile’, wrote Herodotus, the Father of history. For without the Nile, the longest river in the world, the land of Egypt would be dry as a bone, a lifeless arid desert hardly fit for habitation. Yet with the blessing of this river, Egypt is, since at least 15,000 years ago, an elongated 1000 kilometers valley so lush and so fertile that it can truly be called a paradise on earth. But Herodotus should also have added that Egypt –indeed the whole planet-- was also the gift of the air, that wonderful unseen life-giving element that, perhaps like Herodotus, we all take so easily for granted. With the growing pollution of our cities (Cairo is classed high on the WHO list) caused by fumes spouting out of factories and the ever increasing number of motor vehicles on the roads, the air that we breath, that priceless and irreplaceable manna from Nature, is being made more and more  impure each day that passes.

There are, of course, already a few Dhahabeyas on the Nile already. But ‘Afandina’ is a Dhahabeya with a difference: it’s the first of its kind to have a full steel hull for maximum security and durability. It combines the best from the past and the present. ‘Afandina’ will have a fully trained crew of nine. Its captain has already been chosen: a experienced sailor from Aswan,  Reis Mohammad Magdy. He explained to me that ‘Afandina’ is unique with its special thick steel hull to tackle sand banks and the strong eddies. Reis Magdy has years of experience, from sailing fellucas in his boyhood days to larger dhahabeyas in his manhood. He knows the Nile and the prevailing winds like his own family.

The ‘Afandina’ took more than two years to build. At the peak of the construction stage Nazmy employed over 50 workers  --carpenters, welders, painters, electricians, fitters, upholstery makers, cabinet makers and other artists—on and off. They clearly all are proud to have participated in this project and they adore Nazmy. “He treats us like family”, says Reis Magdy. “He not only pays our wages but takes care of us and our families if we fall sick or injure ourselves. He is our very own ‘Afandina’!” (‘Afandina’ means a ‘protector’ or ‘soter’ of the Greeks).

Boats are known to have existed in Egypt since at least the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2850 BC). Even as early as the Pyramid Age (c. 2500 BC) the construction of boats had reached a level of perfection so high that it astounds the modern visitors to Egypt. The supreme example is, of course, the wonderful ‘sun boat’ of Cheops, the builder of the Great Pyramid of Giza. When it was discovered in 1954 in a pit south of the Great Pyramid, it was in a completely dismantled state. It had to literally be rebuilt like a giant jigsaw puzzle. No-one was quite sure how to proceed. Finally a master boat builder was found, Reis Ahmad Youssef, who put it all together, as if, intuitively, he knew exactly how it was built 4500 years ago!  Another nearby pit contains another boat, but the Supreme Council of Antiquities has decided to wait for the right technology to be available, as in this case the wood of this second boat is in a far more dilapidated condition than the first.

When the celebrated queen Cleopatra VII took the mighty Caesar on their honeymoon up the Nile it is said that their ship was 300 cubits long (about 125 meters) and was decorated with the finest furniture and the sails draped with the finest silk. It is on this trip that the young queen (she was 21, Caesar was 52) got pregnant with the future Caesarion. Dhahabeyas were used till the 1930s when they finally gave way to the much larger modern motorized Nile cruisers, those massive floating hotels that we see today, to cater for the booming tourist industry. Yet the dhahabeyas remain a deep nostalgia to all those who are old enough to remember the times when they graced the Nile with their tall sails and elegant lines.

 

State Room

“When I launch ‘Afandina’ in autumn next year,  says Nazmy, “I have decided to invite a special group of VIP guests from all over the world: authors, philosophers, scientists and, of course, Egyptologists. I want them to experience my love for Egypt and to share the splendor of the Nile as it must have been done in ancient times. I want them to sense the tranquility, the majestic beauty of this sacred river and, of course, the many marvelous temples along its banks. I want to revive one of ancient Egypt’s most splendid and loved of yearly festivals, the ‘Sailing of the Goddess Hathor of Dendera’. There are ancient inscriptions and drawings that tell us how, in the month of September, this journey took place along the Nile when an effigy of Hathor, goddess of beauty and love, was put on a ship at Dendera and sailed  160 kilometers upstream to Edfu, there to be united in a sacred marriage to the god Horus. The journey began at the new noon and lasted fourteen day till the full moon. It also involved the rising of the star Sirius, the star of the Nile. It must have been magical, like a fairy tale on water, with a flotilla of ceremonial boats sailing along the Nile. And so I want to use ‘Afandina’ as the flag-ship to re-enact this ancient festival and journey each year. This will not be simply a typical touristic Nile cruise but a unique cultural experience, an unforgettable journey along the Nile for all who will participate.”

The real pleasure, of course, will be sailing leisurely with only the power of the wind, and with only the sound of water flapping on the hull of ‘Afandina’ as it travels along the Nile…and, of course, the thrill of approaching the ancient temples with the tall sails fluttering in the breeze like in the ancient days. ‘Afandina’ will, of course, be equipped with all the mods and cons expected by seasoned 5-star travelers, says Nazmy. It will carry a maximum of sixteen guests plus the crew. Nazmy has employed a qualified chef for the kitchen, and wants everything to be perfect to the last detail. The rooms, which will be ergonomically designed for maximum utility and comfort, will not have numbers but names of the last royal family of modern Egypt. “I am not a royalist”, jokes Mohammad Nazmy, “but I am proud of our past, the pharaohs, the Khedives and even the last kings of Egypt, Fuad and Farouk. They are part of our 5000 years culture, and I want to honour this.” But even if ‘Afandina’ will have the best that modern technology allows, Nazmy says that ancient ways and traditions will also be respected, such as using lanterns in the evenings for dinners on the open deck, and obtaining fresh food organically grown, and cooked and baked in the traditional manner. ‘Afandina’ will also be equipped with a library with books on ancient and modern Egypt, and Nazmy is planning to even have a mini planetarium with astronomical software and a telescope for stargazing at night in the crystal clear skies of Upper Egypt.

“I don’t want my guest to only see Egypt with their eyes”, he says proudly. “I don’t want them to herded around with cameras like we see on other tours. I want them to taste Egypt with all their senses, to feel Egypt with their souls, to be part of its magical past as well as its present, and to experience the Nile as it should be experienced: with open hearts. I have traveled in many countries of the world, and seen many of their wonders. But there is nothing that compares to Egypt. The last of the seven wonders is still here, the Great Pyramid. And the Nile still retains its mystery and magic. I want my quest to experience all this in the best possible of ways. ‘Afandina’ will be their ‘home away from home’ and yet, at the same time, it will be for them an exotic, sensual and intellectual experience that they will always remember with joy.”

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