Where murders (on the Nile) are made….

 

‘How much is the fare?’ I asked, and the boat owner set his starting price at 1000 EGP, which was about double the usual price.

The temperature had just surpassed 42 degrees, and I was standing in the sun.

‘Seven fifty’ I replied, to cut the matter short.

‘Come on man – it’s a long trip and fuel is expensive! Nine hundred! ‘

‘Seven fifty, or I’ll take a taxi.” I said and made a not very convincing attempt to walk away.

‘Ok, ok – seven fifty then!’ was the somewhat expected reply and a few moments later I was on my way, riding the waves down the Nile along the waters of the first and lowest former cataract of the river in Aswan, in Upper Egypt.

I am not a great negotiator, and I am always uneasy about haggling with people in less prosperous countries. While fighting over a price is part of the culture in Egypt and generally expected in most parts of North Africa, I do not get any joy out of squeezing people who are living just above the breadline, for a painfully low price.

Having knocked a bit off the top but having met somewhere in the middle felt about right to me and I could rest assured that the skipper was left with a decent profit as well.

Before the boat ride I had stepped out of my very basic dwelling in a Nubian village, ignoring the considerable accumulation of rubbish on the unfinished building site in front of my hotel, which had attracted a pack of stray dogs that had made it their temporary home and that had succeeded in keeping me awake at night.

Passing the local pharmacy, that had made no secret of the nature of its bestselling merchandise, I had walked down an unpaved desert road, that only camels, kids with their three-wheeled tuktuks and the most decrepit taxis dared to use. This was far from a “well off” place….

And yet, I was now about to immerse myself into a very different kind of environment, preparing myself to spend a considerably larger amount of money for a cup of coffee and a few sandwiches, that in line with the long established British institution of the “afternoon tea” had during a semi-surgical procedure been separated from its crust and cut in to easy manageable oblongs with precise 90 degree angles.

This was, providing that the simple linen suit I had purchased years ago in Nepal and the worn-out canvas espadrilles I was wearing (instead of my hiking boots…), would comply with the basic dress code.

The place had just changed hands and in the general confusion that comes along with a new management team, I was hoping that any new appearance standards had not yet been established.

The destination for my short boat trip was the river entrance of the Old Cataract Hotel, an exclusive, expensive, and well guarded address, and a watering hole for famous desert travellers right since its opening in 1900.

It was here, where Agatha Christie, who’s former house in Sunningdale I could have passed every day on my way to work, wrote one of her most famous novels : ‘Death on the Nile ‘.

For the main part of 1937, the author made the hotel her home while her second husband was working on the nearby archeological sites.

The fateful cruise that was taking Hercule Poirot and the other protagonists further up the Nile to the temple of Abu Simbel, was departing from the Hotel.

After agreeing to buy a restaurant voucher for 1500 EGP (roughly 30 Euros), I was allowed to settle into one of the comfortable chairs and enjoy the colonial atmosphere of the place.

The scarlet and white Moorish archways that got their inspiration from the Mamluk mosques in Cairo, the mahogany walled bar, that would not have looked out of place in Central London’s Clubland, or the delicately crafted lanterns with their cobalt blue glass protuberances, a material that had been manufactured and valued on the shores of the Nile already at the time of the pharaohs.

The shaded terrace, surrounded by palm trees and a well-maintained garden, where even in the middle of the day a gentle breeze, that was passing uninhibited through sand coloured canvas shades and delicately carved lattice panels, provided an ambient temperature.

    

Winston Churchill had walked these halls and enjoyed the terrace at several occasions and during his stay in 1937, he had shared the view on to the Nile and to the ancient ruins on Elephantine Island in the company of Agatha Christie.

A hidden orchestra had at the time provided the background music.

While many hotels today can easily rival the interior design, the luxury and the comfort of the furniture or the quality of the food (the sandwiches were actually not that great…..), no money in the world can substitude for the originality and the history of a place like the Old Cataract Hotel.