“Instagram vs. Reality” in Aswan’s Nubian Village

I have to be honest – I hate it when guests insist on visiting the Nubian Village in Aswan these days. That’s not because we don’t want to take them there, even though it is a 30-minute ride each way on a dingy little motor boat that wreaks of gasoline and exhaust. Instead, it’s truly because I know it’s not going to be what they expected, they’re going to be disappointed when they find out what it’s really like once they get there, and they will have wasted a half-day in the process that could have been spent on something more worthwhile.

In Egypt, there’s no shortage of things to do, see, experience. In fact, there are SO many things to do here that visitors often have to cut their wish lists in half because they simply don’t have enough hours in the day or days available on their trip. So when I see someone insist on dedicating an entire half-day or even a full day sometimes to going far out of their way to visit a place that some instagramer led them to believe was “Amaaaaazzziiiingggg!!!” and I know that in reality that’s not the case at all, all I can do is have a moment of silence for them and then let them just find out for themselves.

Never mind the person who has been there more than a dozen times over 10 years. Go ahead and trust that person you follow who took photos of certain things and from certain angles and then edited them extensively in Adobe Lightroom and posted what they thought would get the most views and clicks and revenue for them. Go right ahead!

The main area known as the “Nubian Village” in Aswan isn’t what it used to be. Ten years ago, it was the quaint little settlement on the western bank of the Nile about 30 minutes south of downtown Aswan with simple mud-brick houses painted in whimsical bright colors set along quaint earthen streets and alleys that you could meander through on foot. It did USED to be this way, and after a while people who visited it did start writing about it and, as social media platforms gained more prominence, posting striking photos of its cute streets and colorful facades. But as word began to filter out about this quirky little village, more and more tourists began to visit it and the fast building spree and hyper-commercialization quickly began to take over.

Now when you got to the Nubian Village, half of the structures are unfinished new construction that looks abandoned and the other half, which consists of the original buildings and houses, are covered up by makeshift kiosks selling cheap mass-produced trinkets. Walking through the dirt roads is no longer a quaint experience because the smell of the donkey and camel dung littering the streets is overwhelming and you’re often dodging said camels and donkeys as they trot by you with someone on them trying to convince you to take one of them for a ride.

But the Instagrammers who go there because they were told they have to still have to get their shots and their content, so they’ll search far and wide to find a few misleading angles to take some colorful photos and then edit those to make the color pop more that it does in reality. Then they’ll post those photos and continue the cycle of misleading by telling you that it was just oh-so-magical. How could they not? They’re not going to caption their photos with the real description of “I was stepping in donkey crap when I snapped this after making sure that the unfinished brick wall beside it wasn’t in the shot and the whole experience was only ok at best.” That kind of write-up isn’t likely to make you scroll to the next photo or click through to see more of the “only ok” visit, is it? Hence the cycle continues.

I personally revisit the Nubian Village every few years to see if anything has changed or if some coalition of residents or businesses have organized themselves there in order to clean up the place and restore it to the authentic charming village that it used to be. But every time I continue to be disappointed in seeing this place go further and further down the path of inauthenticity, commercialization, and simply over-doing it. If that ever changes, I’ll be sure to let you know.