Abu Simbel

Abu Simbel
Originally uploaded by wapstar.

This morning we were up at 3:30 for a trip south to Abu Simbel. It is 280km south of Aswan, and home to the Great Temple of Ramses II. All tourists must be part of a police convoy if they want to visit. So, around 4:00 a.m. we sat on the street outside our minibus just out of town, waiting for all of the tour buses to show up. When all were accounted for, the first truck full of armed policemen took off, we all followed, and another police truck followed. In additioned, there were a few other police vehicles full of armed men among us, and we had an officer armed with both an automatic and an uzi sitting in the passenger seat. We're not sure of the reason for the security, and we weren't sure if we felt safe or unsafe, but the trip was uneventful.

Arriving at Abu Simbel around 8:00 a.m., we walked along a desert path, turned a corner and had a beautiful site of 4 huge statues of Ramses guarding the entrance to the temple. The temple was carved out of the side of a mountain around 1274 BC, designed by Ramses II as a place of worship of 3 gods as well as a show of the pharaoh's strength. The temple is 30m high, towering over the river and Lake Nasser, and the 4 statues of Ramses II are over 20m high. It is one of the most impressive things we have ever seen. It would have been completely submerged after the Aswan dam was built, but was alone is an amazing feat of engineering let alone the temple itself.

Inside the temple are thousands and thousands of hieroglyphs as well as carvings and reliefs, mostly showing Ramses II conquering his enemies. There are also statues of Ramses II himself and the three gods the temple is dedicated to: Ra-Harakhty (sun god), Amun (king of gods) and Ptah (god of creation). Nearby this temple is the Temple of Hathor, dedicated to Queen Nefertari, Ramses II's wife. Hathor is the goddess of love.

After spending the morning exploring and just sitting there staring at these temples, we waited around for the convoy to assemble, then set out on the 280km drive back to Aswan. Our next destination was the Aswan High Dam. This was crap and not worth the 5 Egyptian pounds we paid. Next we went to the Temple of Philae. This was one of the temples that would have been destroyed when the dam was flooded, except Unesco rescued it and moved it to a different island in the Nile. It is a temple dedicated to Isis, Goddess of magic, protector of the dead, and the symbolic mother of pharaohs. We took a little boat out to the island, driven by a boy no older than 12. Unfortunately for us, it was at least 45C out and because we refused to pay anything more than the posted price for the boat, they gave us the only boat 'working today' which also had no shade. But it was a short ride, and we had our kushari lunch (which we'd brought with us) sitting in the shade of part of the temple.

This temple was built around 380BC and was still in use as late as 550AD. It's a fairly large complex, with hieroglyphs, carvings and reliefs adorning nearly every surface. It was very cool, and in a beautiful setting as well. Taking the boat back to the mainland, we were all motionless and silent in the heat. We thought the 2 Japanese girls were going to melt. Back on shore we loaded back up into the minibus and stopped at the Unfinished Obelisk just outside of town. It's a huge piece of granite in the middle of a quarry, measuring about 42m long. It was supposed to be a huge obelisk for one of the many temples around the country, as this type of granite is only available in southern Egypt. But the guys found a flaw in the stone and stopped carving it. Had they finished, it would have been the heaviest piece of stone ever fashioned. This was a quick visit as it was so bloody hot and walking around on a huge slab of granite that has been sitting in the heat of day is not the best place to be.

Arriving back at our hotel around 4:00, we had a swim in the pool and tried to scrub off the layers of sand and dirt. We did some laundry in our room and spoke with Nigel's dad before heading out to meet a potential felucca guide. We had heard from a few sources that 'Captain Washington' at the Aswan Moon restaurant was the guy to go to for felucca trips. He had a trip leaving tomorrow with 4 people already signed up, but he was charging more than double what we should have been paying, probably since he knows he's now 'famous' in the backpacking world (not that we could officially verify that it was the true Cap'n Washington). We spent some time in the evening trying to get another boat organised, but there just were not enough backpackers around, and we couldn't afford to hire out a whole boat to ourselves. We wandered through the town souqs again, had some dinner, another night swim and then went to bed.