Abu Simbel Temples, Aswan Botanical Garden, and Kom Ombo Temple

This entry is about Day 6 of the trip, Monday 12/6

This morning I woke up at 2:30am… well, considering I didn’t get into bed until about 1:15, I guess it was only a nap. We left to go to the Abu Simbel Temples which are located hours out into the desert. The reason we had to be there so early was because it gets hot there in the middle of the day, and we are supposed to go with a number of other groups (not really sure of the reason but I suppose it has something to do with security.

3 hours later after my unsuccessful attempts at falling asleep on the bus, we finally arrived at Abu Simple to see the Temples of King Ramses II and his favorite wife, Queen Nefertari. We learned that the reason for the location of the temples is that they were meant to act as a warning to outsiders, like Nubians for example, that they were about to enter into Egypt and that they should be on their guard. The temple of Ramses was very majestic and understandable that it would be intimidating. Both temples were carved into the mountains, not constructed piece by piece like most other temples. The temples were also only discovered in the 1800s, so it is a relatively new finding. Because of the construction of the Aswan Dams, the temples had to be relocated to avoid water damage, so they are currently located at a high point from which they originally were.

Inside the temple of Ramses were many hieroglyphics on every inch of the walls telling a number of stories of occurrences in King Ramses II’s life. Some of them still had original colors, which was remarkable. All the way at the end of the temple stands a statue of Ramses, and we learned that only 2 times per year the position of the sun will shine perfectly on this statue. This goes to show how knowledgeable the Egyptians were in respect to the sun’s positioning in addition to architecture. Queen Nefertari’s Temple was smaller, but nonetheless beautiful. After spending about an hour here we headed back to our hotel (another 3 hour bus ride, yikes!)

Luckily I got some sleep on the ride back. When we got back to the hotel we packed our luggage and got onto a boat that would take us to the Aswan Botanical Garden. Here we saw a number of plants and flowers from all over Egypt compiled in one place. There were also spectacular views from this point because it was at a high elevation.

Finally we made it onto our Nile cruise ship for Lunch! (I seriously can’t believe how much we do in a single day on this trip) We will be spending 3 nights on this ship which will take us up to Luxor, which according to Zack contains about 35% of the worlds artifacts!

In the mean time, after settling in we stopped at the Kom Ombo Temple, which was very beautiful and was another temple that had some Greek influence. This temple was from the Greek/Roman time and had very elaborate details. It was dedicated to the Gods Sobek, the crocodile God, & Horus, God of protection. There are many depictions of crocodiles in the hieroglyphics, and there were many crocodile mummies found in this temple when it was discovered.

Lastly we made it back to the ship for dinner and will very soon be going to sleep because I am exhausted! I can’t remember what we have planned for tomorrow morning, but I do know that we have the afternoon for free time on the cruise! Woo! Also, Internet isn’t free here so I will be posting my entries in chunks. But do not fret because I am continuing to take not of everything I see here; this place is incredible!

The Beautiful Aswan: Temple of Philae, the High Dam, & the Nubian Village

(Didn't have my camera on me at the time, but pictures are coming soon!)

We started this morning by waking up on the sleeper train, which we had spent about 12 hours on. To say the least, the sleeper train was definitely not my favorite part of this trip. Luckily I was extremely tired from the lack of sleep I got the night before and the busy day we had, so I WAS able to fall asleep. I also had a bit of motion sickness because the train was extremely bumpy so I took some Dramamine and I conked out around 9:30. The beds were extremely small and hard, so when I woke up at 3am to go to the bathroom, I basically didn’t fall back asleep. We were woken up at 7am for breakfast, which included, a roll, a croissant, a corn muffin thing, more bread, etc… Haha, so basically I had a little bit of starch for breakfast (Don’t worry mama I’m watching myself!)

We got off the train around 8am and arrived in Aswan, which right off the bat we could tell was completely different than Cairo. Aswan is a city in Southern Egypt, which we learned was a very important city in ancient Egypt. We also learned that the land of Nubia occupied the lower region of Ancient Egypt and Northern Sudan, so much of the culture in Aswan is still Nubian today. The people here look different in appearance; because we have traveled significantly further south, the people have darker skin compared to those living in Cairo.

Our first stop in Aswan was the High Dam. On the way there we drove over the Low Dam, which was constructed before the High Dam and is smaller. Prof. Ghaly told us that the difference in water elevation on each side of the High Dam is about 70 meters and was constructed to better regulate agriculture and irrigation in Egypt; the site was very impressive to say the least. Lake Nasser was created as a result of the High Dam, which was named after President Gamel Abdel Nasser (the person responsible for starting the project). Unfortunately this is not my area of expertise so you can probably refer to Ben’s blog entry on this for more details.

The next stop was to the Island of Elephantine to see the Temple of Philae. The Temple contained remains mostly for the Goddess Isis and was originally located on the island of Philae but was relocated to the island of Elephantine to better protect degradation of the structure. It took many years for the temple to be relocated exactly how it was on Philae. There was a clear Greek influence in the structure of the temple, and the hieroglyphics displayed in every inch of the place was remarkable. The detailing in the carvings was still so clear despite many years of damage.

Next we went to the unfinished Obelisk, which was left from the ancient time carved into granite. It was at this site that the ancient Egyptians would carve granite stones and bring then to other locations to build structures. Before the construction of the Dam, the Nile would reach this location and they would use boats to move the stones. When the ancient Egyptians were carving the obelisk from the granite, cracks began to form and they stopped completion of this project. Considering how hard the material is, it is pretty unreal they were able to complete such a feat in those times.

For lunch we went to a Nubian restaurant where we ate chicken cooked in a pot with tomato sauce (not the tomato sauce you might be thinking of) and some other vegetables. Unfortunately my stomach still isn’t 100% so I didn’t get to enjoy the food completely, but it tasted good.

Finally we checked into our hotel, Pyramisa Isis Island, which is so beautiful and has an amazing pool. We quickly freshened up and took a boat to see what a typical Nubian village looked life. We went into a home that was made out of mud and had paintings on the wall. Here we got to hold a baby crocodile (yes! Seriously!) And get henna tattoos (many of us got an Eye of Horus (symbolizes protection) tattoo on our ankles to symbolize our experience in Egypt. They had a lot of kittens here too that we got to play with (so cute!) and gifts to look at. We had a lot of fun here. There were a number of shops outside this location as well (unfortunately I didn’t get anything, I’ve been very picky with the stuff I’m buying!)

After this we headed back to the hotel to eat some dinner. A bunch of people went in the pool at this point as well (wanted to go in but I wanted to finish blogging!). We are only staying in this hotel for the night and then tomorrow we are heading to the Abu Simbel Temples, which should be very exciting! We have to get there very early and it takes 3 hours to get there so we are leaving the hotel at 3am! (A.k.a I’m getting no sleep tonight! Boo!) Tomorrow we will also be starting our cruise. Hopefully Internet works well!