We slept on the boat overnight and woke up at 3:30 AM. The group including kids were all assembled at 4 in the van and the drive started to Abu Simbel from Aswan docks.
Most of us dozed off in the first hour of the drive as it was still dark outside. A little past 6AM the van slowed down for a tea and restroom stop in the middle of the desert! It was good we had some local currency. Restrooms also need local currency for the two sheets of toilet paper they hand you. The restrooms themselves were well maintained but the cigarette smoke was difficult to deal with. Wanted to come home and check what percent of the population smoked and what lung cancer rates were in Egypt. A healthy population is a good idea for any country. With kids (who looked 10 or under) smoking everywhere, it cannot be a good thing!
Enough with the vent. We came out of the shack, ate a packed breakfast that was given to us at the boat, took pictures of a glorious sunrise and kept driving.
lens flares on iPhones are tricky. was trying to teach a class to the group on how to avoid them.. this is as good as it got. More lessons are required!
We went past a small city which was mostly engineers supporting local agriculture in the desert. It was a massive project covering acres growing everything from basic vegetables to maize.
Eventually after 4 hours we made it to Abu Simbel. We got an explanation of how the temple was going to go underwater with the new dam and it took 10 years to literally cut the original temple block by block and reassemble it above the same hill.
The original temple was perfectly oriented to have the sun come through and shine on the main shrine on two days of the year. The new moved temple up the hill still had that going for it. The original temple was a marvel. Moving something like that in the 70's within a 10 year span with global support was impressive!
The minute you walk around the hill and come across the gigantic statues, it just takes your breath away!
There was still color in the murals on the walls and ceiling. Given we were close to Dec 21st, the sun was angling in and lighting up the entire temple in a golden glow inside!
A few pictures of the insides of two temples here..
A video highlight of the Abu Simbel visit.. the video captures both the sunrise and the beauty and scale of the temples!
We had spent a litle over two hours at the temple including a restroom stop and some time at the gift shop buying magnets. Then it was time to start the 4 hour drive back.
It was a race and there were no stops on the way. We had to be back at the boat before 2. Lunch was at 1:30 but the boat was finally going to start moving at 2PM.
We made it at 1:30! I had enough time to run to the market across the docks with Walid and grab some more large water bottles before we started sailing..
We were surprisingly refreshed and were not as tired as we thought we would be! We were all looking forward to moving in the boat on the Nile!
We had reached out cruise boat and had a nice lunch. The plan was to take a nap and do an evening activity. It was optional and 4 of us opted to do it. It was 20 USD per person to do a boat ride on the Nile to the other side past Elephanine island to visit a Nubian village.
Our guide Walid, pretty much begged me not to miss it. He said "you are a photographer! the sunset here is just plain amazing! don't miss it!". So off we went. We started at ~4:30. Walid had told us that it will be at least 2-3hours to go, spend time at the village and come back to the boat by the 7:30 dinner time.
Walid was spot on! This was the most amazing sunset we had seen with the boats, the river and the different types of huts in the villages we crossed.
Here is a slideshow..
There were lot of pictures on the boat ride to and fro.. some highlights and "people pictures"
We got fantastic photos!
Most of these Nubians (folks from south of Egypt and Sudan) who are generally dark skinned were displaced because of the dam. They had a rich social culture of large families that lived in groups. Their houses always had a central courtyard with rooms being added as folks got married. A modular mud house structure with igloo type roofs. They put sand in the open courtyard.
there were beautiful murals on the walls..
Almost all of them had crocodiles for pets as the crocs were their main god.
Walid told us that Crocs were their god(Sobek) for a reason. They would watch how high the crocs went to lay their eggs on the sand banks. Higher they went, more the expected flood for the year a few months later. The crocodiles were an early flood warning system for them. They saved lives. They were worth protecting! They are fed "bread"! they were veggie crocs and were mostly docile and played with the kids. We shopped around the market and were welcomed into a home for tea and coffee. The family was nice. Their kids had a 20 year old croc and a 2 year old baby. I was allowed to hold and pet the baby croc which was just wandering around our coffee table!
it was 1 USD to pet the croc and take pictures. It was free to let it wander around near us!
After that we were asked to check out the view from the roof.. it was like a west mambalam rooftop per the group! The village roads (sand) and the cute shops and fast running race camels made for some amazing experience.
We said bye to the village and went back to our cruise boat watching the reflected lights from the village in the Nile waters..
(our friends were the reason for this photo.. wife did the art direction, husband took the photo)
It was a spectacular evening! We were glad we went on this. . .
Video highlights of this "optional" but should have been a compulsory trip!
After this we stopped at the local Aswan market to get some water bottles (the cruise was charging for large water bottles). Later we found out that the two regular bottles in the rooms every day were free. However there was no way to make hot water for tea in the rooms. They did give us hot water at the bar but we had to tip the guys who gave us hot water at the end of the trip(that was okay!).
We were informed by an apprehensive Walid that we leave the following morning at 4AM and he has set up a wake up call for the group! Again a collective groan went up. There was going to be a long drive in the morning!
When we went back to the cruise, my head was splitting because of jet lag. I dozed off and skipped dinner.. apparently they had made Dal just for the desi familes who had joined that day on the cruise (it has a 200 people capacity and was pretty much full!). There was 8 of us and a group of 6 from Mumbai and another quiet desi couple.
Our second morning in Egypt started at 3:30 AM to get ready to hit the Cairo airport from Giza. We were flying to Aswan. Once we landed and got the bags, we saw that they broke the wheels on my big suitcase. We were talking to the AirCairo rep at the small Aswan airport to complain that the brand new bag was damaged and he said "this is just a small thing. if you go to the main street in Aswan you can get it fixed!". He didn't even want to accept a complaint. Just bought the suitcase last month. Our guide, a patient softspoken man by the name of Walid, was already waiting and he just shook his head. At that point decided to lift it as much as possible or readjust the weight to be able to drag it with the wheels on the front side! So we loaded it into the large van and started off towards the first stop of the day.
Aswan dam!
Egypt, the land of the Pharoh's and pyramids gets to go through successive invasions and takeovers from Romans, Greeks, Brits, and Ra knows how many other strifes between the North and South. Every now and then someone comes and unifies the place and claims a throne.
By the time the military takes over from the monarchy and General Naser leads the country post World War II, he is inheriting a huge population, a developing economy that is hungry for resources and development, which all relies on one thing. Water! A country that is 90% desert needs water.
As a kid in India we learn a lot about Nehru, Nasser and Tito from Yugoslavia coming up with the concept of Non-Aligned nations that don't want to take sides in the US vs. USSR arms race. They push for economic development over the cold war. That was our history books.
All these countries got help in some form from the USSR. There is a monument to symbolize the early work.
Egypt did in its early days but when the terms were not favorable, they went to the world bank with even worse terms to get teh Aswan dam built. However, after starting the project, they realized that a lot of old temples were going to be flooded.
Guess a few old temples in ruins going underwater was not a big deal initially. Given they were relocating so many villages to the other side of the dam, it was understandable.
Then they literally got international help from the archeology community and chopped up temples block by block and moved them to higher ground. The effort is extremely commendable!
The dam itself is a massive undertaking. We walked on it and took pictures. Got a history and engineering lesson from the display boards on the dam. While all this was going on, I realized Arabic is a beautiful language in Aswan area compared to Cairo. In Cairo, it came across as staccatto and a rude tone. In Aswan the syllables were all blending together and there was a softness to most of the words.
There is an old Aswan dam which is now more of a sluice gate that is generating minimal electricity. That itself is massive. The new dam is a game changer. Still Egypt has its own version of the "Cauvery water issue" with Ethiopia as they have built a dam as well and that brings in less water into Lake Nasser.
This is the largest manmade freshwater lake in the world !! No wonder it drowned out so many temples!
After seeing the dam, we went to see the Philae temple. There was a boat ride to the temple, an hour and a half spent at the temple and a ride back. This temple is only 2800 years old. A young temple by Egyptian standards. It was a small but beautiful temple. It had many chambers for the different gods and the offerings. At one point there were gold statues at the altar for every deity. The early Christians came and defaced every face of the old gods to force Christianity on the population. Felt sad seeing those beautiful carvings all faceless. Someone spent so much time and effort into creating those works of art. Kings, queens and military rulers come and go as do religions.. we see leaders statues being pulled down today after revolutions. So our guide explained, it is what time does to this world. He said it is amazing that at least this much is left after a few thousand years. Normally they take the giant stones and make smaller blocks out of it to build houses!
The walkways on the side with the massive pillars have faces on top that gradually increase the smile from the first pillar to the last! That was incredible art work! We had a lot of fun taking pictures around the pillars. There were also a lot of cats in the temple!
Most of these giant stones were quarried 100's of kilometers away and brought here by special boats a few thousand years ago. Even the stones were a resouce for a newly developing country.
There was a separate complex to the side that was built later in Roman times.
One thing we were exposed to at the temple was the stores on either side of the walkway to the temple. These are street vendors who try to sell trinkets to the tourists. You cannot walk to any temple without crossing these stores and the kids trying to get you to come to their parents store! It is like the strategic stores at the exit of every ride at Disneyland or the walk out of the airports through duty free shops! Guess they learned that from the Egyptians! Temples were economic centers. In most of the temples you have to pay to use the restrooms. So having local currency in change is recommended! The ladies decided to buy "masala nuts" of the Egyptian variety after sampling a few of them.
Saw these Egyptian doves and took a picture..
We enjoyed the temple visit but were tired and hungry. It was time to go to the hotel. That is when we were told that we were to stay in the cruise , not a hotel. Our next stop was a Nile river cruise that started the following morning. So we expected a hotel stay in the night. Turned out we were staying in the docked cruise ship for the rest of the day as the cruise was supposed to be 3 nights minimum. We were dreading small claustrophobic spaces and tiny bathrooms (after our Mexico cruise experience from years ago).. but found this one to be better than the Giza hotel room!
We had enough time to put our stuff in the room and have lunch on the cruise. The plan was just to chill out till the next morning or try some optional activities for the evening.
Video highlights of the dam visit, the Philae temple and the cruise ship room!
To be continued when my jet lag gives me a break..
