ASWAN : This city has kept much of its original African character and long has been a winter watering hole for Egypt’s wealthy. Best experienced in quiet contemplation, it remains one of the country’s last unspoiled discoveries.

For the solitary traveler, Egypt holds as many aggravations as wonders. But there is solace--and more--in the southernmost end of the country. Here in Aswan, 534 miles up the Nile from the chaos of Cairo, there remains time and space for quiet contemplation. Never completely assimilated by the ancient Egyptians or their successors, Aswan retains much of its original African character.

Its Nubian population is among the world’s friendliest. Small wonder that the place has long been favored as a winter watering hole for Egypt’s wealthy (“Nice on the Nile,” the locals call it), and remains one of the country’s last truly unspoiled discoveries.

Tours tend to give the area short shrift, regarding it primarily as a jumping-off place for sightseeing elsewhere. Loners--and lovers--can take heart: Aswan is best experienced in solitude.

Getting here can be an adventure in itself. Travelers must funnel through Cairo, where connecting flights leave daily on Egyptair, the national carrier. A round-trip fare averages $150. Tickets should be bought through the airline’s New York office; call (718) 997-7700.

For those on more relaxed schedules, a vastly more satisfying journey is via rail. Air-conditioned, German-built overnight sleepers leave Cairo’s Ramses Station every evening at 7:10, arriving in Aswan at 10 a.m. the following morning.

Except for the food, which is dismal even by international rail standards, the trip is quite pleasurable and affords magnificent, otherwise unobtainable glimpses of Egyptian rural life in the enchanting light of sunset and dawn.

Tickets can only be bought at the station (itself surely one of the most colorful of Egypt’s monuments) in an unmarked, run-down office to the left of the main entrance.

The cost per person is $50 each way, and no reservations are accepted. A little patience at the window generally meets with success.

Aswan is rich in scenic treasures. The best orientation is via a felucca ride. Those charming, lateen-sailed craft that have plied the Nile for centuries are the used cars of Egypt, and the pitchmen no less unctuous. But they can make for a rewarding cruise--provided the price has been duly set in advance.

A leisurely half day can be spent sailing around Elephantine Island, with stops at the Tombs of the Nobles cut out of the cliffs on the barren west bank of the Nile; the botanical gardens of Kitchener’s Island, first planted by the former consul general and now a national floral preserve; the lonely mausoleum of the Aga Khan on a high bluff overlooking theriver, and the neighboring Monastery of St. Simeon, one of Egypt’s last remaining Coptic Christian shrines.

At each stop, armies of dragomen inevitably descend to “assist” the visitor. Hereditary custodians of the historic sites, these ancient, wrinkled fixtures offer their services as tour guides and interpreters. But they are masterful extortionists who prey mercilessly on the uninformed.

It’s useless to reason with dragomen, and virtually impossible to ignore them. If a traveler refuses to be directed toward some obscure (and largely dubious) curiosity, they’ll simply insinuate themselves into a snapshot and holler for baksheesh (tip).

Combatting this scourge requires equal craftiness. Because dragomen steer clear of organized tours, a generally successful ploy is to appear part of a group. Any strays, however, are likely to be cut from the flock and immediately fleeced.

Plunked down amid the monuments are innumerable Nubian villages. Men in flowing cotton gelabiyas and women in traditional black overclothes pass unhurriedly through dusty avenues whose sturdy, colorful stone buildings bear witness to the spirit and vigor of their inhabitants.

Cars are virtually nonexistent in these parts; camel and donkey are still the preferred means of long-distance travel, and yoked oxen monotonously turn the water wheel known as the shadoof that persists as rural Egypt’s principal method of irrigation.

Though poor even by Egyptian standards, there is little of the utter destitution here that so afflicts the nation’s urban centers. Still, it is unwise to wander these villages unsupervised.

Bands of scavenging children are likely to materialize from nowhere, insisting that a visitor take their picture, buy a Coke, anything to extract a few piasters. A stern “ ma fish “ (Arabic for “there is nothing”) uttered with authority generally proves persuasive.

The Nubian flavor is better sampled in the city’s lively, expansive souk. A more relaxed atmosphere pervades the stalls here than in the gantlet of Cairo’s Khan al Khalili bazaar, resulting in a considerably more pleasurable shopping experience.

There’s the usual array of tourist gewgaws--hieroglyphic alphabet T-shirts, heads of Nefertiti and Tutankhamun--but also some distinctly native work, such as exquisite handwoven baskets and beadwork. Bargaining is the custom, and those with the stamina for it can land some excellent deals.

Ranking just behind the souk for local color is the cutthroat competition among Aswan’s cab drivers. Cabbies here are more personable and a good deal less manic than their counterparts elsewhere in Egypt, and amazingly prompt.

Aswan’s main attraction is the High Dam eight miles south of town. It’s a billion dollars’ worth of concrete 360 feet high, 900 yards long and two miles across. A great photo opportunity--except that cameras are forbidden, as on all public works projects throughout Egypt.

Completed in 1972 with Soviet assistance (and American turbines), the dam has proved a mixed blessing, eliminating catastrophic floods and bringing much-needed power to rural areas, but also robbing the land of the river’s rich silt deposits and accelerating erosion.

Even more masterful in its engineering is 3,000-year-old Abu Simbel, erected by Ramses II as a sort of colossal scarecrow to warn off southern invaders (it worked).

Moved from its original site to escape permanent inundation when the building of the High Dam created Lake Nasser, Abu Simbel is perhaps the most oft-photographed of all Egyptian antiquities. The pictures, however, can only suggest the true grandeur of this massive sandstone construction, rising six awe-inspiring stories heavenward.

Forty minutes by plane from Aswan (or a three-hour drive through the southern desert), Abu Simbel is two temples, the larger dedicated to Ramses in the guise of the sun god Horus, the smaller to his favorite wife, Nefertarii, in her role as Hathor, the goddess of love.

But its real fascination lies through a metal door placed between the two. Behind it, the cliff into which the temples have been cut is revealed as a monumental 20th-Century fake--a hollow, hangar-like structure covered with sand and rock. Even Ramses would be impressed.

(Less impressive is Egyptair’s cavalier attitude toward this popular flight. It isn’t enough just to have the $65 round-trip ticket. Reservations must be confirmed and then reconfirmed, a trying task at best, and even then there’s no guarantee of a seat. Planes are regularly overbooked, and places doled out on a first-come, first-served basis, so early arrival can prevent considerable nail biting.)

Also saved from a watery grave was the temple complex of Philae, long regarded as the most delicate collection of late Egyptian architecture. It’s on a man-made island accessible from Aswan by a 10-minute boat ride, and is dominated by the magnificent Temple of Isis, a product of Ptolemaic rule.

Equally renowned is the Roman Emperor Trajan’s kiosk of 14 exquisitely carved pillars, once known fancifully as “Pharaoh’s Bed.”

The island features a stunning sound-and-light show that easily outranks its overrated counterparts in Karnak and Giza, and makes an ideal first night’s introduction to the region’s history.

Taking the left fork of the road that leads to the Philae boat pier, visitors reach the granite quarries from whose red rocks Pharaonic masons once obtained their raw materials.

Still in place is an unfinished obelisk 125 feet long, commissioned by the legendary Queen Hatshepsut for her jubilee but abandoned when a crack appeared as the stone was being polished.

Weighing in excess of a thousand tons, these gigantic monoliths were somehow transported up the river on barges for their erection and dedication at major religious sites.

Insatiable temple worshipers can make an easy half-day trek north to Edfu and Kom Ombo, which offer further variations of Egyptian art as interpreted by the Greeks.

In particular, Edfu, the best-preserved temple in Egypt (the original roof is still intact), boasts an astonishing array of symbolic and religious scenes carved onto every inch of its inner and outer walls.

The gods’ faces were methodically hacked away by early converts to Christianity, but their supple musculature and graceful lines present a fascinating contrast to the stiffness of traditional Egyptian renderings.

A good stop along the way is the village of Daraw, where every morning hundreds, even thousands, of camels are herded into a giant riverside corral and auctioned off to buyers from all over the Arab world.

Flatbed trucks loaded with the ungainly dromedaries are a common site on the road to and from Aswan. The dromedaries’ elastic necks crane over the side, leathery faces staring at the passing scenery like package tourists on a whirlwind holiday.

Viewed from the Aswan Oberoi Hotel’s airport tower observation deck, day’s end in Aswan is one of the most breathtaking sights anywhere in the world. The setting sun casts a brilliant orange glow across the land that flares suddenly, then fades.

With the onset of darkness, the Nile becomes a silvery mirror, and the chants of the muezzins from the city’s countless mosques rise into the air with the whispering breeze, the hypnotic flap of felucca sails and the night songs of birds from Kitchener’s Island, a haunting chorus of man and nature.

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Lodgings in Aswan are scarce, and rooms can be scarcer in the peak winter months. Once Upper Egypt’s flagship hotel, the Cataract isn’t what it used to be (its dilapidated condition scandalized Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on a visit three years ago), but renovation by the ETAP chain has restored something of its former grandeur. Single rooms run $60, doubles $80 (slightly more in season).

Built half a century ago on a hill one mile south of town overlooking the Nile, the Cataract was for decades famed as “the” place to stay by European dignitaries.

There’s something engagingly decadent about the hotel’s plush lobby, with its overuse of crystal and its spacious terrace seemingly the perfect place to reflect on the decline of empire. The place is teeming with visitors who appear lifted from the pages of a Somerset Maugham novel.

More central and a good deal more lively than the Cataract is the Isis, just below the corniche. Operated by Spring Tours, its 78 chalet-style rooms ($55 for singles, another $10 for doubles) are adjacent to but tucked away from the city’s bustle, and its flamboyant river-side bar ranks as a nighttime hot spot for locals and tourists alike.

For hospitality, it’s hard to beat the Aswan Oberoi, which sits in the middle of the Nile on Elephantine Island, so named for the enormous black granite outcroppings that surround it.

The Oberoi’s 160 rooms offer indescribable views of the river valley, with most units by the water’s edge. Single rooms average $75 in season, doubles start at $100. Reservations can be made through the Oberoi’s New York headquarters. Call toll-free (800) 223-1474.

A ferry in the shape of an old Pharaonic bark shuttles guests across the river, where the hotel’s courteous and efficient staff offer glasses of karkadeh (a popular cranberry-like Egyptian fruit drink).

Services are extensive and prompt, the shopping arcade off the main lobby offers decidedly superior merchandise, and facilities include a luxurious pool, gardens, bar and nightclub. In winter months a fully equipped health spa functions with open-air sand baths, Aswan sand reputed for millennia to possess extraordinary medicinal and healing powers.

In such surroundings it’s tempting to do little or nothing, especially after so much as a day in pixilated Cairo.

For more information on travel to Egypt, contact the Egyptian Tourist Authority, 323 Geary St., Suite 303, San Francisco 94102, (415) 781-7676.