It was a relief stepping off the old rickety, stinky 3rd
class train, Once we had found our way out of the train station we were greeted by the hustle and bustle of Aswan:
“hallo, taxi cheap cheap for you!”
“no thanks we will walk”
“What your hotel?”
“hotel Kelani”
“oooh very far 5 or 6 kilometer!!”
Well we found the hotel and it certainly wasn’t 5 or 6 killometers away!!
We had dinner on the Nile and then a short look around the Souq before returning tot the hotel for the night.
The following morning we decided to go to the Nubian museum, it was really interesting, there was a section on the construction of the Aswan damn and a section on the export of granite to the rest of Egypt to make statues an various other monuments in Ancient times. Winton and I met two ladies who were working at the museum, they showed us around
( took lots of photos of us) and told us lots more interesting information.
After that we thaught we would take a short walk through the cemetery over to the famous, unfinished Obelisk. A man guided us through the cemetery and showed us the Aloevera plant witch we rubbed on our hands… after we had baught tickets to the Obelisk Grant’s eye was starting to sting, after a while it got worse so we realized that he must have accidentally got some aloevera juice in his eye!! It kept getting worse until he said it was unbearable and we were washing his eye out with water.We contemplated going to the hospital but after a while the pain started to ease and eventually we were able to go on an see the Obelisk.
It was called unfinished because it’s shape had been carved out of the granite but when they were carving it they noticed a flaw in the rock so they abandoned it still half stuck to the rock!! It was amazingly big and our guide book said that if it had been standing it would be the world’s largest Obelisk.
We had a late lunch then wandered back along the river to our hotel.
The Next day we arranged a tour to Abu Simbel for the following day then caught a small motor boat across the Nile river to the west bank ( witch is mostly dessert). We bought entrance tickets to some ancient tombs,
The first one had stripy stone walls and some well preserved relief paintings of Mekhu (a noble) and his son, Sabni.
The second tomb didn’t have as much detail in the carvings but our guide was able to convey to us ( even tough he didn’t have very good English) what they meant.
The third tomb didn’t have paintings and was mainly hieroglyphics carved on the walls.
We decided to walk about 3 kilometers across the dessert to the monastery of saint Simeon.
A 1500 year old stone and mud-brick building. There was a few surviving paintings with graffiti all over them but exploring the ruins was lots of fun.
After that we made our way back down to the river bank and caught a boat across to elephantine island… In ancient times before upper and lower Egypt had combined there were 7 lean years when the Nile did not flood the valley giving fertile crops and many people starved. The Pharaoh of the time sent his scribe to consult the gods about why the Nile was not flooding as usual, the scribe returned with news that there was a new god called Khmenu, God of the Nile. Apparently the people of Egypt had not been worshiping the God Khmenu enough and he was angry so he got revenge by making the Nile not flood. The scribe said that the Pharaoh must go to Elephantine Island (where Khmenu lived) and worship him then build a large and spectacular temple to Khmenu!! …
So he did and we saw the ruins of the temple on the island!!
After that we were invited to have tea with a man who had a tourist shop. We bought a little something from him but he wasn’t very happy that we didn’t buy more so he tried to charge us lots of money for the tea!!!
We went to bed a bit early that night because we had to get up at 3:00am the next morning to go to Abu Simbel, we had to have tourist police escorts.
In summer they go at that time to avoid the heat of midday ( it seem like they are just doing it to catch the cold in winter!?!?)
Although we got up at 3:00 am the net morning we only left Aswan at about 4 because we had to go around to many other hotels to pick up the other people in our tour group.
I slept most of the 3 hour trip to the temple of Abu Simbel , we arrived there it was only just after sunrise.The temple of Abu Simbel dedicated to Ramses the great and completed in 1244 BC was going to be drowned by the construction of the Asawn Damn in 1960 they moved the entire temple
( enven the rooms carved into the rock and the carvings on the walls of those rooms!!!)
50m up the bank so that it wouln’t get drowned!!
At the front of the main temple there were 4 big statues of Ramses the great sitting down facing the beautiful lake Nasser, In the middle of all the statues is the entrance to the rooms carved inside the rock. It was amazing how well they had moved and reconstructed it, looking at old photos you could barely tell the difference!!
After spending a good amount of time marveling at the temple we moved on to a viewpoint over the Aswan high Damn. After that we drove on to the place to catch a boat to Philae Island. We got tickets then caught a boat over to the small little island with a temple on it.
There were some very beautiful carvings on the walls of the temple and the island its self was also very beautiful. Finally, we returned to Aswan.
The following day was Christmas for all of the Coptic Christians in Egypt, we walked down to the cathedral and saw the mechanized nativity scene and all of the Egyptians celebrating. Although Islam is still the dominant religion here, they are many more Christians down south. After that we decided that we would have a Felucca ride to, Seheyl Island. It was a very good day for sailing, as we drifted down the Nile our guide pointed out different Islands, each with its own story from ancient times.
When we arrived we went to look at some ancient inscriptions carved onto great big lumps of granite. Then our guide invited us to his house, it was interesting walking through the Nubian villiage to his house, his wife cooked us a delicious lunch, she also did henna tattoos on us, Winton got a Scarab beetle ( it was used in ancient times as a symbol of the rising sun) mum got her name in Arabic and I got a lotus flower.
After that we headed back to the felucca, the wind had changed so we had tack on the way back. We watched the sunset o the cornice then headed back to the hotel.
The following day we sorted a few things out on the internet then had another wander around the souq. After that we haggled over the price for a boat ride to Kitchener island, once we had achieved a reasonable price we motored over, to the small island. It had been turned into a botanical garden island and it was covered in beautiful trees and plants.
We strolled around the island ( it was only about 600m by 300m) and as we walked we saw a little hoopoo bird, he was so cute!!
Today we are flying back to Cairo for 2 nights and one day, then we will fly to Dubai for a 7 hour stop over and catch up with Cinty and Douglas.
After that we fly to Bangkok for a night and a day then….. MELBOURNE!!!!!
Seeya later,
Freya
