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Welcome to Aksa's Travel Tips and Quips, Issue 4, Vol 2, Jan/Feb 2002.
For the next three days on our tour of Egypt (July 8-10), my dad and I would leave Cairo and fly south to visit the cities of Aswan, Abu Simbel, and Luxor.
The first stop in our ’mini-tour’ was to be spent Aswan to see the High Dam, the granite quarries, and Philae. Aswan is a two hour plane ride and our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:00 a.m.
Wednesday, July 8, 1998
Because our flight was scheduled to take off at 6:00 AM, my dad and I had to ready at 4:00 AM to go to the airport. As tough as it was to get up that early, I’d had a relatively good night’s sleep, thanks to my dad. After torturing me for two nights with his unbelievable snoring, dad pulled out a pair of ear plugs before I’d gone to bed and innocently asked, 'Would you like to use these?' Hello! Why didn’t he give those to me the first day? I laugh about it now, but at the time I could have choked him senseless!
We made our way down to the lobby to meet our head tour guide, Hassan. On the way to the airport, he told us there had been a change in plans. We would still be flying south to Aswan, but we would be changing planes and going on to the temples at Abu Simbel instead, which was originally scheduled as a day trip for the following day. At the end of the day, we would to fly into Aswan. My dad and I had no problem with the change, not that we had any choice in the matter! It was rather comical that we weren’t told about the change until we were driving to the airport!
The flight to Aswan was quiet and uneventful as very few people were on the plane. When we landed there, we were met by one of Hassan’s tour guides, Sallah, who took our luggage and put us on a charter flight to Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel is located in the desert, west of Lake Nasser, but technically it’s in the middle of nowhere. You can only reach the area by plane, so there are daily charter flights for the tourists.
The flight was fun because there was such a mix of people on the plane from all over Europe. Besides me and my dad, there was only one other family that spoke English. They were from the UK and were very friendly. Flying over the open desert was surprisingly scenic. The weather was perfect. The sky was clear and it was very bright and sunny so I could the ground clearly. The patterns in the sand were almost hypnotic.
When we landed, everyone boarded a bus for the short drive to drive to the temples.
When the bus stopped and we all got off, we were in front of a large hill of sand and rocks. I couldn’t quite figure out where the huge temples were. Everyone was divided up into small groups with their own guides. We followed a path to the right of the hill that first wound upward, then around huge rocks. When we walked around the rock face, we were surprised to come upon a gorgeous view of Lake Nasser. The water was a crystal blue and sparkled under the bright sun.
For a moment, everyone just stopped and stared because we didn’t realize that the lake was even there. It couldn’t be seen from the road. We continued on, over and down the side of the hill on curving path. The rock wall of the hill was on the left of the path, to the right was the view of the lake. When we reached the bottom of the hill, still winding to the left, the rock wall ended and we came out onto a huge, open, beach-like space. Only a few yards away was the lake. When I turned completely to the left, I was stunned by the view of the two enormous temples. The sight was absolutely breath-taking. All I could think was, 'WOW!!'
The two temples are built into the back of the hill and stare outward from the cliff face at Abu Simbel. On the left is the Temple of Re-Herakhte with its colossi of Ramses II, and on the right is the smaller (if you can really call it smaller!) Temple of Hathor, associated with Ramses’ queen, Nefertari. Before the creation of Lake Nasser, which was created by building the Aswan High Dam in the 1960‘s, the temples overlooked a bend in the Nile and could be seen from the river. I’m sure that was an impressive sight. The construction of the dam would have drowned the temples under the waters of Lake Nasser, so an operation was organized to move the temples to a new and higher site near by.
However, the temples had been originally cut into a giant cliff face, and so an artificial hill had to be constructed and the temples had to be set into it. A small doorway to the right of Re-Herakhte’s temple lets you inside a air-conditioned dome that supports and stabilizes the temples. It is really bizarre knowing that what we thought was a natural hill is really a man-made dome inside. (We got to walk through the dome on the way back to the bus after going through the temples.) It took 5 years (from 1963 - 1968) to relocate the temples to the new sight. When you are standing in front of these unbelievably huge structures, moving them hardly seems possible. I took dozens of pictures and I almost had to stand in the lake to get the temples into the frame of the photos. The scale of the statues compare to the size of the tiny people is awe inspiring. (In the pictures shown, my dad is the tiny man in the doorway, wearing a hat and a plaid shirt, and waving!) What incredibly skilled craftsmen and engineers those Egyptians were!
We went into the Temple of Re-Herakhte first. Arranged in pairs on both sides of the entrance of the temple are at total of four enthroned, approx. 20 meters tall colossi of Ramses II. Inside the temple, there are amazing carvings in the stone depicting Ramses as a conquering hero and a god. The paint colors are still surprisingly vibrant after thousands of years. Our guide was informative and was very good about explaining what many of the carved scenes meant. Ramses ruled until he was 96 which was almost unheard of back then. He was a very intelligent and powerful ruler, which made him extremely arrogant.
There were two things I particularly enjoyed about the temple. The first was a carving depicting a story of how the god of fertility was left behind to guard the god of war’s wives while he was away at battle. When the god of war returned home, there were a lot more children than when he had left. Naturally, he was a bit upset about this so he cut off the god of fertility’s arm. The god of fertility is always depicted in the carvings with one arm and anatomically correct! The god of fertility tried to defend himself by stating that he knew many men would die in the battle so he was doing his part to repopulate! How about that for an excuse? Just like a man!
The second thing that I found interesting was a small room that houses 4 statues; the god of darkness, one of Ramses, and two more of other gods. When this room was originally built, on Oct. 21st of every year (the day Ramses was crowned pharaoh), the sun would shine into the room on one statue at a time starting with the statue on the far right. The sun would shine on the first statue on the right for 12 minutes, then the other god, and then on Ramses, for five minutes. However, the sun would never hit the last statue on the left, the god of darkness. Then, on the first day of spring, the same routine would happen starting on the opposite side. The sun would shine starting with the second statue from the left, then move to the right to shine on the third and fourth statues. The sun would NEVER shine on that first statute on the left, the god of darkness, because he didn’t like light! How cool is that? The strangest part about this whole event is that when the temples were relocated, the engineers miscalculated, so now this event now occurs on Oct. 22 and the second day of spring! With all the modern technology, we could not recreate the ancient Egyptian's calculations!
The Temple of Hathor was equally impressive. It has six colossal statues of Ramses and Nefertari. Inside the temple there are beautiful columns throughout the rooms. The walls have colorful reliefs of Ramses fighting his enemies and of Nefertari. It was very unusual for a pharaoh to acknowledge a wife in such a grand way. Most pharaohs depicted their wives as very tiny figures in murals or as small figures at the foot of their enormous statues. But, Ramses really loved Nefertari and so he acknowledged her in unusual ways. I had to give Ramses credit for that! Pretty cool!
All too soon, we headed back to the bus and flew back to Aswan. We got into Aswan around 2:00 PM and Sallah met us at the airport with a car and driver. They drove us to the Kalabsha Hotel where we would be spending the night. It was a much larger hotel than the Salma Hotel in Cairo and right on the bank of the Nile. On the surface, the hotel was nice but older. It was a bit warm inside but still comfortable. Since it was still early in the day, Sallah told us that we could either spend the rest of the day at the new Nubian museum or we go on a felucca (sail boat) on the Nile. We decided to take the felucca ride and enjoy the rest of the day outside. We had to drop off our bags in our room then meet Sallah back in the lobby. When we got in the room, it was warm but appeared to be fine. The bathroom, however, was right out of my worst nightmare. Totally disgusting! Thank goodness I always travel with a can of Lysol! When we went down to the lobby, I made a bee-line to the front desk and told then to get someone up to our room to clean up that disaster. The man at the desk was a bit startled by my request, but said he would take care of it. I guess they aren’t all that concerned about clean bathrooms!
We met Sallah in the lobby again and he had another guide with him who would to take us to the felucca! The cast of a million guides was really becoming laughable. The funniest part about this young guide was that all he did was walk us across the street to hire the boat! He didn’t even go with us! He spent a total of 5 minutes on the job and we had to tip him! It was so insane! Oh well. The felucca trip was well worth it.
Two young Nubian brothers owned the felucca and were very nice although they didn’t speak very much English. The boat ride was very relaxing and the weather was still great. Although we were on the water where there was a breeze most of the time, there were times when the breeze died and it was hot. There was a lot to see on the lazy sail down the Nile. We went past a place called Botanical Island. It was beautiful. All different kinds of flowers and plants. Apparently, the tiny island had been presented to an English general in 1911 and he indulged his love of plant life there. Now, it’s open to the public. We also sailed by the Noble’s Tombs. These are a line of tombs facing the Nile and are built into the cliff face. All of these tombs belonged to governors, princes, and priests whose lives revolved around the Nubian trade. The highlight of the ride was when one of the brothers sailed our felucca smack into a docked boat! Luckily, we weren’t moving very fast and we saw it coming so we braced ourselves. All in all, I highly recommend going out on a felucca.
After we got off the felucca, my dad and I wandered around the street a bit. We were surprised to find that our hotel was right next to the Old Cataract Hotel. This hotel was made famous by mystery writer, Agatha Christie. She wrote "Death on the Nile" there and it has been in many movies. It’s a red and white brick building with wonderful gardens. I wished we were staying there!
Dad and I made our way back to our hotel and had a nice dinner. There were very few people staying in the hotel so it was very quiet. We sat outside on the patio and had a drink, then went up to our room. It had been great day of adventure!
