Vacation: Part II

I'm back for part two of my Christmas break adventures.

We pick up the story where we last left off--sleeping in the Nubian Oasis hotel in Aswan. The following morning we awoke at 3 AM in order to catch a convoy that was heading down to Abu Simbel. We boarded a bus and hit the road. Before many minutes we pulled off the road and parked amidst a group of about 10 other buses, all full of passengers. As we talked with the other tourists on the bus we learned that all foreigners traveling to Abu were required to travel in military escorted convoys because of an incident that had occured several years earlier. As the story goes, some tourists were kidnapped on the road by terrorists, and ever since then, anyone traveling that stretch had to have a military escort, just in case. Needless to say, it took awhile for all of the buses to be cleared for travel. But by 4 AM the long line of vehicles was once again moving.
The next thing I knew, we were pulling into the parking lot of the Abu Simbel temple. The driver told us that we had two hours to see the area before returning to the bus. As we emerged into the bright morning sunshine, I was struck by two things: First off, it was genuinely cold. I was glad that I had brought my jacket, because the wind was brisk. The second thing I observed was that the temple was set in a beautiful area. When the Aswan High Dam was being built in the 1960s, the temple was dismantled piece by piece and moved to higher ground where it was reassembled in a mountainside. Completeing the dam in 1971 led to the formation of the massive Nasser lake, which serves as the beautiful azure backdrop for the temple grounds. The early morning sunlight, the breeze, the lake, the deep blue sky; all of these combined to become a picturesque morning to see some ruins.
Abu Simbel is the sight of the Temple of Ramses II. If I had to describe this temple in one word, it would be big. The 4 statues standing (well, sitting actually) guard at the temple's entrance tower over visitors. More than many other sites we visited, Abu Simbel is very well maintained inside and out. Board planking makes floors level and easy to walk on while adequate and professional lighting makes viewing the many heiroglyphs easier. And so we perused the corridors of the late Ramses II's temple and in what seemed a brief period of time , we headed back to the bus to head to our next destination--the Aswan High Dam.
I'd like to say something right now: the Aswan High Dam is a misnomer. Calling that pile of rocks a high dam is like calling Michael Jordan a mediocre basketball player. Anyone who knows or has seen any dams can tell you that there is nothing high about that dam. It is built of successive layers of sand, rock, and dirt, with a small amount of concrete. But the worst part of all is that we had to pay for tickets to stand on the pathetic thing. Upon inspecting our tickets later that day, we discovered that they were probably fakes (All tickets to authentic Egyptian sites carry an embossed holographic seal, and these tickets had none). So after shooting the breeze for 15 minutes on the Aswan mildly-elevated pile-o-rocks, err... dam, we were again on the road, this time headed for Philae Temple.
Philae Temple, also known as the Temple of Ises, is built on an island in the Nile, and must be reached by ferry. Upon arriving, we were struck by the idyllic setting. The temple grounds are in relatively good shape, and unlike many other sites, Philae is quiet and rather peaceful. I must say that this was one of my favorite temples, and anyone who visits Aswan should make the trip out to see it.
Well, it was getting late in the afternoon when we left Philae and headed back into Aswan. But before our tour concluded, we made one more stop at the ancient quarry where the unfinished obelisk was sitting. It's size was impressive. According to our guide book, the obelisk was to be the largest ever constructed, at 42 meters. Workers were in the process of hewing it out of solid granite when a crack formed. Knowing that it was now useless, the workers abandoned it, still attached to the bedrock. The highlight of this visit was that Eric got to hold one of the guards' AK-47 for 10 LE. I was more than a little jealous, but it's okay, I took the pictures.
After all of this traveling, we were more than grateful to return to our hotel for some much-needed rest. Ricardo had moved on which left just Eric, Kevin and I. It wasn't long before all three of us were passed out, fast asleep.

That sums up our last full day in Aswan. Tune in next time to hear about our Felucca cruise, making new friends, and seeing some more temples.

Coming Soon...