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Swimming in the Nile and visiting Abu Simbel

Hmm, I think I finished yesterday with visiting the Aswan Dam. After that, we made two stops before returning to the ship for lunch. The first was the Unfinished Obelisk. The obelisk was carved out of solid stone in a quarry in Aswan, and would have been the largest known, had it been erected. While it was being carved, cracks developed and the obelisk was abandoned unfinished, still attached to the bedrock (approximately 1500 BC).


Unfinished Obelisk. You can see the cracks at the far end.

From there, we went to a shop that sells art on papyrus. There was a demonstration of how papyrus paper was made, which I enjoyed. Then, of course, they tried to sell us the products. Actually, I think most of us bought something. I bought two small pieces, the cat Bastet for my brother-in-law and an Anubis for Jake and me. I can't include pictures, because they are at the framer. (In my normal fashion, I paid about $70 for the two pieces and I just spent $300 to frame them. But they're going to look awesome!


Then it was back to the ship for a while. Oh, we did stop at a convenience store for snacks, which was fun. I got chocolate wafers and pistachios. I'm still eating the nuts, as I didn't open the can until I got home.


We next took a felucca ride out into the Nile. Side note: we were on three different boats this day (to the Temple of Isis, this felucca, and a motor boat tour to look at wildlife) and on each, the crew uncovered or dumped out bags of stuff for sale while we were onboard. I did buy some stone bead bracelets and a few other trinkets on the boats.


Anyway, the felucca sailed out across the Nile and was fun. The crew was the captain and his son, probably 10 or 11 years old, a beautiful boy. (It was explained that he has school in the mornings, not the afternoons.)


Our felucca. I took this image after I had transferred to the motorboat for the nature trip.

There was then the optional Life on the Nile excursion. Seven of us transferred to a motorboat and went upriver to a nature sanctuary. The guide was wonderful. He was a Nubian and lived in the Nubian village not far from Aswan. His name was Mohamed Arabi, and his nickname is the Birdman of Aswan, and he did know the birds! Since I was the only birder on the boat, I got the lion's share of the info from the guide and the captain (who also spotted birds for us).


Senegal thick-knee, one of the cool birds I saw

Several of us wanted to swim in the Nile, so the captain beached the boat and in we went. (Technically, one of us—not me—jumped from the top of the boat before we landed, and the other two of us dived in from the shore.) It was wonderful! The water was a bit of a shock when I first went in, but after a minute it felt great!




As I mentioned, our guide, Mohamed Arabi, is a Nubian, and we talked a little about that. He said that he was glad that Nubia is now part of Egypt, that before they became part of Egypt, they had nothing except poor villages. He told me about his home, and all the animals that they raise for food (ducks, goats, pigeons—but they only eat the young ones—chickens, etc.). He said if I came back to Aswan, he would show me his village and we could travel into the desert for birding. If I'm ever in the area again, I might just make a trip to Aswan just for that!


I had brought a big towel from the ship, and by the time we got close to shore, I was pretty much dry. The boat was docking about 25 or 30 feet from the ramp to our ship, so I just planned to walk with the towel around me, not thinking anything about it. Paul, one of my fellow swimmers, offered me his shorts to wear, and I was like, huh, why? I mean, it was just a few feet! I asked Mr Arabi if I should put my pants on to walk to the ship and he said yes. So I did. It was strange though. There didn't seem to be any problem with swimming, but walking down the quay for 25 feet with bare legs was a no-no.


Lynn and I and one other from our group had signed up for the side trip to Abu Simbel the next morning, so we had to pack that night. We were joining a larger group from another Trafalgar tour for the trip. We had a quick breakfast, then boarded the bus with our luggage. We stopped at another ship for about 25 other people to join us, then headed to the airport. We checked our luggage through to Cairo.


So, the way it worked is that we were flying Egyptair from Aswan to Abu Simbel. After our tour, we were flying back to Aswan on the same plane, changing seats, then continuing on to Cairo on the same plane. The rest of our group was spending the morning shopping in Aswan, and would join us on the Cairo flight.


Abu Simbel was definitely worth the time and money. There are two temples there, the Great Temple, dedicated to Rameses II and the Small Temple, dedicated to Rameses II favorite wife, Nefertari. Both temples were relocated in 1968 as the waters of Lake Nasser rose. Incredibly, they were raised 65 meters and moved 200 meters back from the river.



We entered the Great Temple first. There are 4 statues of Rameses II (also spelled Ramesses) out front. They are about 65 feet tall!


Great Temple at Abu Simbel

There were lots of chambers within the temple. It was also very dark inside, so the color in my photos is not true. When you first walk in, there are columns that are also depictions of Rameses.



I took a video to try to capture the impact of these huge statues.



One unusual thing about the art in the Great Temple is that there were many depictions of war and killing. That is not something that I had seen in the other sites we had visited. There were also the normal scenes of offerings, etc.




There was a single image of Nefertari in the Great Temple, and I think I found it. It was not in the best of condition.


Nefertari

I did enter one of the side chambers. They were very dark with low ceilings and stories all around the walls.




Next, it was on to the Small Temple. This one didn't have as many side chambers. I started to say that the art wasn't as warlike, but there were still some scenes similar to those in the Great Temple.


Entrance to the Small Temple




It's a good thing that the Small Temple was smaller, as I was running out of time. We had about a quarter mile walk uphill to where we had to meet the bus. I took some pictures looking back at the two temples. When you look at the closer Small Temple, you can see the blocks from where the temple was cut up to be moved to this location. The blocks were 20 to 30 tons each!


Small Temple, with the Great Temple behind

I made it to the bus on time. Then we flew to Aswan and on to Cairo. This time, our Cairo hotel was downtown, near the Nile. (The first Cairo hotel was near the airport.) Our room was on the 20th floor, which was pretty cool. I've already included some pictures from our hotel balcony (traffic, sunsets, and smog!). I'll close the Egypt part of this blog with a Cairo sunrise from the balcony.


Cairo sunrise



If I can manage it, tomorrow or Tuesday (it's 12/3/23 now), I'll try to write a little about Johannesburg and Victoria Falls from my last trip, to finish that up. I leave Friday for 10 days in Costa Rica, and that will finish off my 2024 travels. It's been an incredible year of travel for me, with three trips to Africa (Morocco, Egypt, and Southern Africa), a US road trip with my rooftop tent to Big Bend National Park in Texas, and now a trip back to Costa Rica, a place I visited once in 1987. Expect hummingbird pictures!

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