in the lap of the gods

This was our final port of call on a cruise which had lasted 12 days and had introduced us to the wonders and mysteries which had spanned 4000 years.

But here, at last, was Aswan. The city which became a mecca for nineteenth-century travellers who already found the Pyramids at Giza and the necropolis at Thebes a tad passe. This was the Egypt of Amelia Edwards and Lucie Duff Gordon; the Egypt of Agatha Christie and her Death on the Nile. This was just about as modern as I wanted my experience of Egypt to get.

With the morning came the intense heat. Cairo had warmed us up for the baking heat of Luxor, but Aswan in June gave us 42(degrees)C, and it can get much hotter.

Guidebooks proclaim that Aswan has the loveliest setting on the Nile. I have no quarrel with that. On one side sits the city, its

shops, businesses, and the old Cataract

Hotel, disguising the network of streets and alleyways which make up the souk, the second best next to Cairo's. The west bank

is home to the Tombs of the Nobles, Saint Simeon's Monastery, and the Mausoleum of the Aga Khan, who spent every winter in Aswan to relieve his rheumatism and now

will spend eternity there.

Nestling between the banks is Elephantine Island and Kitchener's Island which can only be reached

by motor boat,

or preferably by a felucca, which can be easily hired on

the bank. As with everything else in Egypt, the price is negotiable, but generally a felucca ride will cost no more than LE5 (#1) per person.

Aswan is the site of the quarries which provided much of the granite used to build some of the country's most impressive structures. The only thing to see is an unfinished obelisk, which does nothing but show how these needle-like structures were carved in one piece. Those who don't gasp at every feat of Egyptian engineering will perhaps find the quarries a waste of time. I didn't, but, then again, I'm a gasper.

Aswan is also the closest major town to the island of Philae and the temple of Isis who, by this stage, had become a bit of a pet goddess for me. She was the wife of the god Osiris, one of the two sons of the creator Re, who had divided the land between Osiris and his brother Seth. Coming off the worst with mainly dry and dusty bits Seth murdered Osiris and dismembered his body flinging the parts all over Egypt.

Isis collected the parts and, get this, she bandaged them together making the first mummy, then, using her skills as an enchantress, transformed herself into a hawk and revived her dead husband just long enough to conceive their son, the falcon-headed god Horus. Osiris decided to stay dead, however, and become god of the underworld, obviously a bit miffed at how life had treated him - and probably still a bit sore.

The cult of Isis as the goddess of women, purity, and sexuality was said to be chief rival of Christianity between the third and fifth centuries, with some scholars claiming that the cult of the Virgin Mary was an attempt to convert followers of Isis to Christianity.

So, this woman's house I had to see, and thanks to a massive relocation exercise carried out during the 1970s, we still can. The waters of the Aswan Dam had submerged the temple for half the year, and the new High Dam threatened to engulf it forever. The neighbouring Aglika Island was landscaped to match Philae and the temples were moved. The only sad

note to the story is the fact that the temple of Isis no longer faces Biga Island, the reputed burial place of Osiris. Isis was said to have built her temple

so she could always gaze

across to her beloved husband's last resting place. Well, I was on my honeymoon, and

in a heightened emotional state at the time.

Philae and the temples are reached by small motor boat. If, like us, you were on a group tour the fare will almost certainly already be paid, but a little baksheesh can only help to make the ride a little smoother. Perhaps its location on the island is special but I felt so glad that it had been saved from the deep. And, as for the High Dam which threatened to give it a watery grave, it's a good idea to find out a little of the political history and of the significance it has for the continued existence of Egypt, otherwise, it's just a

big dam.

After 12 days of watching the land go by from the comfort of the cruiser, it was time to get a little closer to the Nile, with a felucca ride over to Kitchener's Island. This is a lush, green, tropical place, with bright splashes of unexpected colour. Plants and flowers aren't usually my thing, but there's only so much sand a girl can take, and a wander through the exotic blooms which Kitchener brought to this island, gifted to him following the Sudan campaign, is, quite literally, a breath of fresh air.

The tranquillity of the felucca ride was interrupted by a small voice, in a small boat, coming towards us. The boat turned out to be no more than a large painted orange crate, bearing the legend ''Captain Mustafa'' along the side. Singing his heart out in German, the boy who could have been no more than nine or 10, realised he was playing to the wrong audience, so quickly switched to French. Again not the greatest audience reaction, but when Norma shouted in Arabic that we were British (I can only presume that's what she shouted), we were treated to a spirited rendition of She'll be Coming Round the Mountain. This was obviously received with much hilarity and frenzied reaching into pockets for the entertainer.

This entrepreneurial spirit carried on into the souk, when eight of us decided to negotiate its narrow streets. As if by magic, an alternative tour guide appeared. Again, no more than nine or 10, and again called Mustafa. He greeted us in excellent English and with the solemn promise that he would take us to only the very best shops, and that everything would be ''like Asda price''.

And he was right. Silver jewellery, beautiful Egyptian cotton goods, as well as the ubiquitous flowing galabiyya robes and the decorative rather than functional ''hubbly bubbly'' pipes which are an intrinsic part of the coffee house culture for Egyptian men. We did a lot better than collecting a few measly loyalty card points.

Mustafa was also insistent that he would carry everything that we bought, but at one point said suddenly: ''I stop here. I have to go now. Present?'' Predictably the fivers were flying for his charm as well as his hard work. And so what if he did take us to his brother's shop, his cousin's shop, his uncle's shop . . . we were happy, he was happy.

The most daunting excursion from Aswan is that to the temples at Abu Simbel. I would also like to wring the neck of every guidebook author who has advised that by sitting on the left-hand side of the aircraft you can witness a breathtaking view of Abu Simbel as the plane makes its descent. Everyone seated at Aswan airport waiting for the 30-minute flight to board had that in mind, but, when boarding began (no seat numbers given), a large party of Italians pushed, kicked, punched, and ripped their way through the gate to get to the left-hand side. I had the marks of one woman's rather large rings, which she decided to shove between my ribs, to prove it.

But, in the end, there was a wonderfully satisfying element of ''na na na na na!'' when the temples were shrouded in mist.

On arrival at the site, the same Italians were determined that they would reach the temples first. Instead of following the path built to take you to the temple, they scrambled over the dust and stones to come in at a much sharper angle. This became funnier by the second - they scrambled over rocks in insubstantial sandals and finally arrived at the site later than we did.

Nothing is visible until a bend in the path brings you out behind a rock - and the spectacle of four 20m high statues of Ramesses II greets you. This was the reason the road was built this way - the power, the impact, they lost out on it all.

Norma took us to the smaller temple of Nefertari first, knowing that there would be a major bunfight in the main temple when our chums eventually arrived. The Sun Temple of Ramesses II which was built with such precise engineering that the inside of the mountain would be flooded with sunlight on his birthday and the anniversary of his coronation, and once they had moved on, we had the chance to enjoy some of the best preserved reliefs and most startling depictions of pharaoh's life, in peace.

Abu Simbel was rescued from the ravages of Lake Nasser in the 1960s. Hand-sawn

into more than 1000 blocks, it was reassembled 210m behind and 61m above its original position. It now sits on the face of a false mountain, the interior of which would make a great setting for the last scene in a James Bond film, with its cavernous dome and high walkways.

The Italians were quieter on the flight back to Aswan, having been ''shooshed'' by our Norma inside the false mountain in a most guttural and effective way.

If ever a woman could have snakes writhing from her head . . . and then turn back and smile oh so sweetly at her precious charges. There is something about Aswan that seems somehow more progressive that Egypt's

other cities, with new building going on (a new Egyptian museum). Being entirely selfish, I hope things don't progress too much in my lifetime.

I can almost see myself, in my decrepitude, the sun warming my aching bones, then sitting on the terrace of the Old Cataract Hotel, sipping my first gin and tonic of the evening as another Aswan sunset goes down over the west bank. Or perhaps that's all later. Perhaps that's what dying and going to heaven feels like.

factfile

l The author visited Aswan as part of The Magnificent Nile cruise, one of the many Egyptian Cook's Tour packages offered by Thomas Cook. Other tour operators working in this area include Hayes and Jarvis, Kuoni and Thomson

l The Foreign Office advises caution when visiting Egypt, following last November's incident in which 58 tourists were murdered at the Temple of Queen Hatchepsut outside Luxor. Although the Egyptian authorities have stepped up security measures in a determined attempt to keep visitors safe, the FO recommends that advice from local security forces and authorities should be taken seriously