Malouka is a 10-cabin dahabiya sailing six days from Esna to Aswan, mooring at El Kab and Gebel el Silsileh, with Edfu and Kom Ombo on the way.
You board at Esna, a merchant town about 33 miles south of Luxor, meet the crew and settle into your cabin. A guided walk through the streets follows, and then the Temple of Khnum — which sits 9 metres below the level of the modern town, so you go down to it, and the carvings are all the better preserved for having been buried.
Sailing to El Kab, once the capital of Upper Egypt, with the temple of Nekhbet and a set of tombs cut into the cliffs above it. You walk up through a small fishing village to reach the necropolis. In the afternoon the boat reaches Edfu, and a horse-drawn carriage takes you through the town to the Temple of Horus, one of the best-preserved ancient temples in Egypt. Then on to a quiet island for the evening.
A day given over to the river. An optional walk before breakfast, then sailing, then a stop at a Nile island where you can swim or wander. Later there is a walk into the desert along an old trail lined with prehistoric inscriptions and hieroglyphs, which was once the route towards Libya. The boat anchors for the night below the lit Temple of Gebel el Silsileh.
You wake where the Nile runs at its narrowest, between cliffs on both sides. The large cruise ships cannot dock here, so the site is effectively yours: the rock-cut temple of Horemheb and the sandstone quarries that supplied the stone for half the great temples of Egypt. Then more sailing, with lunch and a swim at a quiet stretch of bank.
South to Kom Ombo, which stands on a bend of the river. The double temple there is shared between Sobek and Haroeris, with reliefs and inscriptions in both halves, and the Crocodile Museum next door holds the mummified crocodiles recovered from the site. Back on board for the last evening.
The boat comes into Aswan at sunrise, with desert on both banks. Breakfast, then you disembark and our team transfers you on.