Egypt: Day 12 (Aswan, Philae, Two Dams and a Felucca Ride)

This morning there was an early trip from Kom Ombo to Aswan, the boat's loud engines kicked in at 4 AM. It was expected to be the hottest day yet, but we were rewarded with a wonderfully moderate day with a breeze. The first site we went to was the Temple of Isis at Philae. After the old Aswan dam was built the temple was periodically flooded. In the 1970's the temples were moved from their old location to a new island 66 ft above the old location. Our guide showed us where the temple was located by the ruins of the dam they created around the site during the move.

Since the temples were on an island we took a boat taxi. There were so many of them waiting to pickup passengers.The driver's boat wasn't in the best mechanical shape. This was the shifter for the transmission. He used a rope to tie it up for most of the trip, but when we got close he used his foot. Classic Egypt.

Thank you tour for your insistence of wearing bright orange life jackets. On second thought, maybe it was the right call after seeing the boats.
Beautiful day at the temple of Isis on the island.

Just think, each one of these blocks were removed from the old structure, labeled and repositioned in the correct order. There were a total of ~40,000 blocks for this temple.

Mmmm, ankh. Isis giving the key of life to the pharaoh.

Notice the small cross in the lower left hand corner. Early Christians marked this as a place of worship.

Our guide pointed out this carving and claimed that Egyptians created baseball. You can judge for yourself.

Missy in front of a monument. Can't remember what it was for.

The temples at Philae were a really nice break. The breeze and what felt like cooler temperatures were fantastic after what seemed like a week of really hot/dry weather. It almost was surreal to be boating around on this reservoir, it didn't feel like Egypt.

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After visiting the temple, we visited the old Aswan Dam.

The Old Aswan Dam. Built in the early 1900's. Obsolete shortly after.

What the first cataract of the Nile looks like just after the Old Aswan Dam.
Missy was so happy to buy this Nubian hat for me. I was almost as happy to wear it.

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Since we are on a tour we had to chance to stop at a papyrus factory. It was a nice opportunity to see how this ancient "paper" was made (and perhaps buy a piece...). The stems of the plant were flattened and soaked in water for a period of time. Next, they were placed (more like weaved) in a crossing pattern and pressed until dry. We purchased a small piece. It showed the Dendera zodiac we saw a couple days before.

Papyrus factory demo.

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Next we stopped at the High Aswan Dam. This dam was built in the 50's/60's with help from the Soviet Union. It really is massive. Over two miles wide and nearly 3/4 of a mile thick at the base. This dam formed Lake Nasser in Egypt and Lake Nubia in Sudan. The lake displaced thousands of Nubians (60,000 estimated from Wikipedia) and submerged ancient monuments (which were rescued by UNESCO). However, the dam provides protection from the yearly flooding of the Nile and has greatly increased the available water for irrigation. It also has provided a substantial amount of electricity for the country.

Aswan High Dam. You can't tell, but it's huge.

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In the afternoon we headed towards downtown Aswan to take a ride in a felucca. It's a traditional boat that has been around for quite some time. It was a joy to be so near the water without any engine noise. There was a pleasant breeze to keep us cool and great scenery to check out. We even had some musical entertainment. There were younger boys paddling on the river with Styrofoam rafts that would sing songs that you almost could recognize. Yes, we did have to wear our bright orange life jackets.

Did this group have to wear life jackets? Nope.

A felucca, the River Nile and some sand. This is Upper Egypt.

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I don't have anything in our notes for this evening so we were most likely in bed early. Tomorrow's 5:00AM departure time to Abu Simbel had a lot to do with that.

Scene on the River Nile around Aswan

(entry done by Dave)

Egypt: Day 11 (Temple of Horus at Edfu and Kom Ombo)

Today we started in Esna and took a short ride down the river to Edfu where the Temple of Horus was located. This was the last large temple built in Egypt, it was started around 237 BC. The temple was perserved quite well because it was nearly covered by sand until the mid 1800's.

Notice the grooves in the walls. This is where banners where hung to inform the locals that a festival was to be celebrated.

The entrance to the temple. At one time wooden doors three feet thick were here. Notice the area in the upper left hand corner of the entrance where the door hinge was.

Here is a very early form of a storyboard. The whole wall was filled with carvings that told the story of how Horus was able to capture the evil god Seth (can be spelled set) (who killed Horus's father Osiris)
Since the temple of Horus at Edfu was the last large temple built is it one of the best preserved. It's sad, but after seeing cravings and hieroglyphics for so many days you take them for granted. When you look at them up close you are really see the detail and skill it took to carve them.

I liked the detail of the sandstone texture and the duck.

Now it's time for a lesson in hieroglyphic numbers (this is pretty much all I learned from our lecture on the boat). Look at the the photo below starting from the right. First you have an owl and a three symbols. Next on the bottom there is a l like the Roman numeral for 1. That is a one in hieroglyphics. There could be up to nine of them. The upside down U's are 10 each (again there could be up to nine of them). The curly figures are 100 each. The flowers are 1,000 each. The staff is 10,000, the animal is 100,000 and the dude with his hands up is 1,000,000. So, what is the number?

Missy had to use the restroom at this temple. So, we walked all the way back to where it was supposed to be. As we approached it we saw a couple of men working near it. One of them stopped working and stood in front of the woman's entrance with his hand out looking for a tip. Missy gave him 1 Egyptian Pound and went in. After this he just walked back to working. We weren't quite sure if he actually cleaned the bathroom or just wanted to get a free tip.

Missy at the rear of the temple.
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South to Kom Ombo

As we traveled further up the Nile the desert came closer and closer to the river. The rocky hills shown here were seen on both sides of the river.

The floating building is a pumping station for irrigation canals along the river. These were somewhat common sites.One of the fun experiences was seeing the locals yell and wave at us.

I am not sure if this was a house or a place for the animals to live

Small village as we approached Kom Ombo

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Next stop the Temple of Kom Ombo. Missy was not feeling very good today (she had her case of mummy tummy) so she stayed back and got some rest. As the photo below shows we were able to walk directly to the temple, no coach buses here. This temple was built in the Ptolemaic Dynasty (sometime around 180 BC). It is unique in its layout because it is dedicated to two gods with each side a mirror image of the other. On one side Horus the falcon on the other Sobek the crocodile. Sobek was the god of fertility and at one point in time crocodiles could have been found on the banks of the Nile at Kom Ombo. After the creation of the Aswan dam these animals became extinct in this area. The dam had blocked the migration route of the crocs from further south in Africa.

Other Nile cruise ship with the Temple of Kom Ombo in the background. Our ship looked pretty similar to this one, I think it was a German tour company. The reason I know that is we actually had to walk through other ships to get to shore, it was a pretty busy location.

Temple Entrance

Carvings of Horus (falcon head on left) and Sobek (crocodile on right)

Artsy

In most of the temples throughout Egypt wooden dovetail joints were used. At Kom Ombo there were still petrified wood pieces left.

The hieroglyphics in this area show a set of medical instruments. This temple was a place of healing, our guide showed us graffiti scratch in Greek where Egyptians were waiting in line for medical service.

We were one of the few ships that stayed here overnight. Tomorrow we set sail for Aswan, the final new city on the trip.

(entry done by Dave)

Egypt: Day 10 (Karnak Temple and Esna Lock & Dam)

We spent Day 10 at the Karnak Temple in Luxor. The temple is an enclosure containing a number of temples to Amun, and some parts of the eastern side of the complex may have been built as early as the 20th century B.C. In Day 7, we mentioned that temples are built inside out - so the outermost ring is the newest. The temple was built by many pharoaohs throughout a long period of time, Amenhotep III, Seti I, Ramses II and Hathshepsut.

There won't be much of a history lesson because Dave is unavailable to help with this blog.

3D map of Karnak Temple . Our tour guide said to properly see Karnak Temple, because of the massive size, you would need a week there. We spent a few hours there. I don't think I could spend a week there because it's so hot outside and I cannot understand all of the hieroglyphs.

Walking into the Karnak Temple.

The pictures don't do the columns justice.

Karnak Temple is the largest temple in the world.

One of few couple pictures we took in Egypt. Need to work on that for the next trip.

This was towards the back area before we turned around.

The hubby!

Right before heading back to the bus due to the heat.

This is my name in Arabic (rotate it 90 degrees though) - too lazy to rotate before inserting.

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We then set sail on the River Nile towards Esna.

Always interesting to see people's homes. It was 102 deg F that day, in the shade.

At the Esna Lock & Dam, the ships slow down their speed. Since the ship slows down significantly, it's a good time to sell merchandise to the passengers apparently...from the river! This was a highlight of the trip for me (but I like stuff like this) and it was hilarious. They would come up in boats to the cruise ship and yell "hello! hello! hey! scarf...one dollar!" If you showed any interest, they would throw it at you whether you were in your room or the top deck. A few of the boats latched on to the cruise ship with ropes. Throughout the whole country, they always try to sell you this kind of stuff...even on the river. I'm not describing it well but it was fun!

This is a pretty good video of the experience.

They love to sell in Egypt!

We didn't want to open up the window in the room because they would think we're interested so we just went to the top deck to take pictures.

"Hello! Hello! One dollar!" (it really wouldn't be one dollar)

Here is the swarm of boats going to the next victims.

Now, at the Esna Lock & Dam.

The river ships go through the Esna Dam one-by-one.

Check out the guy in the Speedo on the other ship!

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At night, the entertainment was a (scripted) play put on by the passengers. They needed more people and Fawzy made be a character, "a sun". Since I had to go on stage, I made Dave join me and he played a "wild boar". Very embarrassing but whatever!

This is one of the pictures a passenger took for us.