Our Journey to Abu Simbel

Well there you go Abu Simbel, and to think the entire thing was cut up and moved as when the High Dam was built it floored the valley that it was in and it would now be completely underwater. What a waste that would of been. I'm not sure if you can really understand the size of it, but you will see in the photos later.

This is at 7:30 in the morning and the reason there is so many people is that there was a police escort that left Aswan at 4:30 am and that is the only time most travel companies will go there as they will not risk driving through the desert without one.



The four statues are the Pharaoh Ramesses II at four stages of his life as he aged these are 67 feet or 20.5 meters tall. On the inside in the sanctuary at the very rear of the temple is four statues, three of the Gods as well as one of Ramesses II himself. One of the amazing things with this temple is that on 22nd February and 22nd October, the birthday and coronation day of Ramesses II











The face of one of the statues fell off during an earthquake before it was moved and as the temple was reassembled exactly as it was previously they also place the head in the same place.












Well aren't you a big boy?












What that speck is Tracey. Now you know what I mean about it being BIG!

Our Night in Aswan

This is the view from our room out over the neighbourhood right next to our hotel. This is the norm, extravagant hotels/palaces next to slums, even though it is generally quite safe the problem is not in getting mugged it is in the kids that beg for money. You can't really blame them, and they are usually really excited when you even just give them a pen. It is unreal.






Well hows that for a sunset? This is from the balcony of our room in Aswan. That thing that was a bonus about Egypt was that if you had a room above ground level you could do your washing and hang it out on the balcony in the afternoon and by the time you went to bed it would would be dry...and this was in the middle of Winter! I hate to think how hot it is in Summer!






This is the same night, we were invited to a real Nubian house to have a traditional meal. This was the start of the end for most people, I had had a slight upset stomach already and everyone else was fine but after this night all bowels let loose. Some people were incapacitated for a few days,lol, though this was lucky seeing as we spent the next few days on a felucca doing nothing.

Oh and see that white concrete box on the right of the picture behind the tables? Guess what was in there? A baby Crocodile! It made the rounds as most people got to hold it and get a picture, I didn't though.


This is the trip back to the hotel. Man those Nubian's can party!

In case you are wondering the Nubian's are different to the Egyptians in that the Egyptians look more Mediterranean and the Nubian's look more African.






And again partying, also note the size of the area this is a felucca and about the size of the area we all slept in while we were traveling on the Nile. Planks were laid across and mattress's were laid and then covered. This is where we slept. Cool huh?

The High Dam

This picture is looking down the Nile River towards the Mediterranean. The security on the Dam is quite strict,because if the Dam was destroyed all of Egypt would be under water in a matter of 15 minutes, that is how much water is behind it. Scary huh?








This is looking the other way with Sudan to the left on the other side of the water. There is another temple they are everywhere in this area...it is just that they are mostly under water.










And there is Sudan on the other side.

Ever wonder if there are still any crocodiles still in the Nile?

Yes there are crocodiles in the Nile it is just that once the High dam was built in the 60's with the help of the Russian's, for the valuable gold that can be found in Egypt of course, the crocodiles could no longer travel up and down the Nile as they liked and the Egyptians started to capture the crocodiles and they were then put on the other side of the Dam. This is not the only creature that has been driven away from the Nile, due to being the creature that Seth is symbolised by, the Hippopotamuses that lived along the Nile moved away as the God Seth was not well liked and Hippos were hunted to be used in ceremonies similar to the Matador's in Spain. In fact at one point where ever Seth's name was found it was chiseled off and only a few places even mention him as they were protected due to rubbish and sand being built up in the temples.

Philae Temple yet again

Here is a picture that you see many variations of it is the Pharaoh making offerings to Hathor the cow goddess. The Egyptians were very serious about their duties to the gods and this is seen everywhere in the temples, the gods are everywhere and generally you don't have to look far to see offerings being made.






All about the small island there are miniature temples that were relocated to this island along with the main Philae temple. Well you can't say the Egyptians didn't think big!









If you look closely you can see a cross at the top of the ledge built into the wall and there is also one on the altar. Once Christianity was introduced to Egypt the early Christian's saw no reason why they couldn't use what they already had, so a lot of temples were used as churches. This caused problems as the Egyptians would get confused as they had worshiped many gods for thousands of years but now there was only one, to fix this they defaced the carvings by chiseling out the features and body parts of the figures in the carvings. It is strange as it is only the people that they marked nothing else.













Yes, yes, I'm getting there Ange










And this is looking to one of the neighbouring islands, to you left is where we docked after approaching the island from behind me.

Philae Temple

Well there it is Philae Temple, it is on an island that was formed when the first dam was built in Egypt. The entire temple was dismantled and then reassembled on the island. In this area there were a lot of temples but that didn't stop the government building two dams and flooding the entire area. Now days that would not happen.









Hard to think that the entire temple has carvings both inside and out.















again more carvings










Bugger...don't you hate it when you put something back together and you have spare parts!!!

Day Two of Our Tour

I know, I know WHAT ONLY DAY TWO!!! Don't get your knickers in a knot I will go faster.

At least you will know how full on it was for us and this was why we spent the last day in Egypt lying around the pool doing NOTHING. :)

Oh well better get back to it.

The Step Pyramid

Here is most of our tour group though there are people walking through as this is the entrance to the step pyramid and it is a long narrow temple.











And there it is the Step pyramid the first ever type of pyramid. This was the beginnings of the pyramids, first there were the step pyramids followed by the bent pyramids where the sides were at two different angles as it was found that once the walls of the pyramids got to a certain height they collapsed so the walls were built at a steep lever to start with and then the top was built at a lower degree hence they then looked bent. Finally came the Great Pyramids we now know.



This is quite cool, ever wondered how the Egyptians got things in to the bottom of tombs and things? What they did was dug two holes next to each other and linked them together with a tunnel at the bottom and then they would put the treasures they wanted kept down the bottom in a chamber off the tunnel and then remove the sand from one of the holes and the level of the sand would drop and the treasures, which would be big things that are hard to move, would slowly sink to the bottom of the hole with no damage done to it. Once all the treasures are at the bottom they are moved into the chamber and they both holes are fulled up. Ingenious huh?







Another view of the Pyramid with the cobra of the north. This is because originally Egypt was two kingdoms, the red cobra crown of Lower Egypt (north, lower Egypt as it was away from the start of the Nile) and the white conical crown of Upper Egypt (south, where the Nile was said to originate).









Look ancient graffiti, I don't know if you can see this that clearly but it was quite strange as in quite a few temples there was graffiti dating back to before the time of Christ. How weird is that!

Finally back again!!

You can see here how huge the Pyramids are just by looking at the guys standing around THEY ARE MASSIVE.











Well I couldn't go to Egypt and not ride a camel. There you are guys I always said I wanted to ride one, I just never thought it would be in Egypt, I thought it would happen in Aussie. But no only the best for me, and I must admit my camel was the best...no lice or scody bits at all, unlike most of the other camels.








And another must, kissing the Sphinx. Though I must admit I take way better pictures then Ange, in fact I took a picture of Ange kissing the Sphinx and the next thing I know there are 5 other ladies that wanted me to take the picture of them kissing it. Problem was they didn't speak a word of English!! Lol it was so fun though.







There you have it the Sphinx and the Pyramids. I must say they must have been spectacular when they were newly made cause even though they are pretty deteriorated they are still a site to see.









And there you go my beautiful camel, no he didn't stink and he was very well behaved unlike the one that had to be head butted to kneel down so Steve could get off. That was a hoot.