Cruising the Nile

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01/10/08


Still in Aswan, our tour today took us to the High Dam, Temple of Philae and Kom Ombo.

The High Dam was constructed from 1960 -1971 across the Nile River at Aswan. It was built to control unpredictable flood waters, and supply a constant flow of water for irrigation and human use. Power is also produced through the hydroelectric station at the dam.

Behind the wall is the largest man made lake in the world, Lake Nasser. The dam wall is 3.6km long, 980m wide at its base and stands 111m high.

To get to the Temple of Philae we took short boat ride, as the temple is situated on an island a couple of kilometres down stream from The High Dam. The Temple was relocated between 1972 an 1980. Due to it being inundated with water when the old Aswan Dam was built in the late 1800's, early 1900's, the temple was relocated stone by stone to its present location. A temporary wall was built around the original island and the water was drained to enable this to take place. When you see what they had to move and where they had to move it from, you can see why it took 8 years to complete. Later in the afternoon we went off to see the temple of Kom Ombo.

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