Today was a change over day for us. Leaving the boat after another sumptuous breakfast.
Turns out finding a taxi to go from the West side to the East banks of Luxor is not that easy. There are only two bridges, one to the North and one in the South. Most of the traffic between the two banks is still done by little boats. Connecting the two centers together. Taxis usually avoid crossing over as this normally means a long drive when using one of the two bridges. Our taxi driver knew his way on the West bank, but not on the East. Chris Google Maps on his phone was a life saver and it was interesting watching the driver trying to follow the directions, indicating immediately despite the turn being 800m away. Clearly google maps have not made it to this cab driver in Luxor yet. But thanks to the app, we found our hotel immediately.
The Embrace hotel was tucked away into small unpaved side roads, but within walking distance to the riding stables.
As our stay with Agnes and Mohammed only started at four PM with a visit to the horses, we had plenty of time relaxing in the sun and having a light lunch at the hotel.
The Embrace is quite quaint, and quiet, complete with a lovely garden and a swimming pool. But super weak internet, and hot showers were also an adventure. Chris ended up fixing the internet issue unbeknownst to them (by reactivating their repeater which was protect by a very simple password), while we were here. We are late with our blog as the coming days as our days were really busy and event filled.
Agnes (Agi) and Mohammed are the two owners of the Desert Dreams (website) stable, the one that we had booked a five day stay with. Half a day riding and half a day sight seeing. They picked us up and we walked five minutes to the stables. We were very impressed how well the horses were kept. One of the darker side of Egypt, besides a lot of trash on the sides of the roads and in the canals, are many badly treated horses and donkeys. Most are bone thin and have old or new sores from badly fitting harnesses. Donkeys are used to pull carts with varying loads and horses to pull coaches for tourists. We refused to board any carriage where the animal did not look healthy.
So when we arrived at Desert Dreams stables, our first look was how the horses looked. All were well fed and shod, of the mares and geldings, some were tethered with a rope on the wall with some room to move and lie down, the stallions had regular size stalls away from the mares.
The tack room was tidy, and the tack was in very good condition. Agnes and Mohammed have several rescue horses that were saved from grim fates as carriage or dancing horses. When they bought them, all were far too thin. Dancing horses, in particular, are kept confined except when saddled up. They are forced to “dance” on the spot by applying pressure from behind, similar to the use of spurs, while not allowing the horse to move forward. Often, their heads are jerked high, causing the horses to step in place, as there is no space for them to move. It’s a very sad fate for these horses. With patience, they must be retrained to walk normally—or even to canter—again.
We ended the day with a delicious local dinner at a restaurant called Africa (after all, Egypt is part of the African continent, even though it is predominantly influenced by Arabic culture). From their terrace, we enjoyed a beautiful view of the Nile, with the cityscape of Luxor on the opposite bank, as a red moon rose in the sky.
We went to bed early, excited for our first ride the next day.
