Upper Egypt
Trip Start
Sep 28, 2005
1
9
103
Trip End
Jun 24, 2006
Aswan, Egypt
Friday, October 14, 2005
Wednesday night we boarded the night train to Aswan. The seats reclined & were quite comfortable, but the journey was a LONG 15 hours (3 hours late). On arrival in Aswan we went to see the Philae temple, one of the best-preserved in all Egypt. It has actually been moved to its present location because its original location was flooded by the building of the Aswan Dam. Lots of mysterious pictures and hieroglyphics and intricate stone carvings throughout the complex.
Thursday wake-up call was a 3AM!! To proceed as part of a convoy to the remote temple of Abu Simbel. This has 4 huge statues of Ramses II at the entrance, and a great deal of imagery & hieroglyphics inside. Also has a lot of heat and humidity from the hundreds of people on dozens of tour buses all crammed in there. Abu Simbel is really "out there", driving through the desert there is absolutely nothing but sand and rocks, then all of a sudden there's Lake Nasser, with the temple nearby. Abu Simbel is another one of the temples which was painstakingly disassembled and reassembled on higher ground to avoid being flooded by the lake.
In the next few days we're off on a 3-day cruise down the Nile toward Luxor, visiting more ancient temples along the way.
Comments
Amazing!
Hi Nathan and Anna! I will begin teaching the Egypt unit in my classroom soon. Mind if I use some of your pictures? I'd love to pose in an Egyptian pose in front of pyramids... you're so lucky! Thanks also for those pictures of Mt. Sainai... I loved your description of that day. God Bless you two!
Larra