A Farmer in the Nile Valley

In many parts of Egypt, as here near Luxor, the donkey cart is still widely used as a simple means of transport to bring in the harvest from the sugarcane plantations along narrow paths. Sugarcane dominates the cultivated areas. During a third-class train journey from Luxor to Aswan, I witnessed how, at many stops (it felt like every third palm tree), passengers would rush out, grab a few sugarcane stalks as a ‘sweet treat’, and then chew on them to extract the juice. The plant fibres and remnants soon spread across the entire floor of the carriage.