Thursday, Nov. 19, 2009 – Abu Simbel

Today started out very early. Our wakeup call was at 4:30 AM. At 5:45 we loaded up on the bus and headed for the airport only to find that our flight to Abu Simbel was delayed an hour. We went through security twice – once when we first entered the terminal and again on our way out the gate to the plane. Both times I had a bottle of water in my bag and they made no comment. Neither time were we asked to show any kind of identification. We were actually encouraged by our guide to take water with us as we should have it with us at Abu Simbel and the airport is very lax in allowing bottles of water especially to Abu Simbel. The flight was about 30 minutes long.

Egypt 2009 - Day 9

On the approach for landing at Abu Simbel, I could see the monument from the air and I actually got a half way decent picture of it. We loaded up on shuttle busses for the short ride to the monument. Once in, we walked a short distance to toward the water of Lake Nasser. Lake Nasser is a beautiful lake with very barren shores. It reminded me of Elephant Butte Lake in New Mexico in a way. We saw where the temple was originally located just below us.

The temples were moved to an artificial cliff 688 feet further back from and 213 above the original position.  The engineering required to move this masterpiece of ancient civilization must have surpassed that which created them in the first place. They are huge and magnificent. The temple was built to honor Ramses II in the 13^th century BC. The façade is 108 feet high and graced with four colossal enthroned statues of Ramses II. According to Atef, the purpose was to give a showing of power and might to intimidate the “miserable Nubians.”  Atef had some interesting sayings. The Nubians were always miserable and goats were always stupid and the early Coptic Christians were always fanatic.

We were allowed into the temple and could look at the drawings and carvings but no photos were allowed inside. Next to the temple for Ramses was a temple for his favorite wife Nefertari. Although it was dwarfed by the huge temple for Ramses, it was still magnificent in its own way. It was much less obsessed with war and fighting and much more about the gentler caring female side. This being said, Ramses did insist of two carvings of him smiting the miserable Nubians on either side of the entry way.

We spent less than two hours at the Abu Simbel site. Considering the $295 price tag on this optional, spending less than two hours here might seem a waste of money but it was worth it in my opinion. My reasoning was that I was here and seeing Abu Simbel now was much cheaper than making a separate trip to Egypt just to see it. The $295 price included round trip air, shuttle buses and entry to the site.

We flew back to Aswan, returned to the boat, ate lunch and rested for a couple of hours.

Just before sunset, we all went on a felucca ride. These are sail boats designed just like they were thousands of years ago. They are very maneuverable in the water. The ride was quiet and beautiful. Watching the men bring the boats to the dock with the sails furled was amazing. Most of the people on the boat opted to go to the market to shop. Anybody reading this knows by now how much I like to shop so I opted to go back to the boat on the felucca.

The ride back on the boat with only four or five other people was really pleasant. I think I made a wise decision to not go shopping as one of the men in our group had his wallet lifted while he was there.

The sunset was beautiful.

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