Aswan - Day 1

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We had a variety packed bread, bread, and bread breakfast on the train. We had a selection consisting of a piece of white bread, a croissant, and a hamburger bun. Mmm…bread. Of course I needed to tip the porter (who wasn’t afraid to ask for it) before I got off the train.

Once we got to the hotel, I talked with Ahmed to see if my luggage had arrived yet in Cairo. Nope. I now fear for the safety of Milkshake, my stuffed cow. Who knows what depraved things French airline baggage handlers could do with a stuffed cow after a heavy night of drinking my liquor. Hopefully they are not making brie out of him.

Luckily the hotel we are staying at here, the Isis Hotel, is much better than the one we stayed at in Cairo. It has hot water that lasts longer than 2 minutes and nice views of the Nile. We were given some time to grab lunch, so a group of us headed down the street to a restaurant on a river boat. The food was very good, classic Egyptian food…although it took forever to come out. We had to threaten to walk out before it was finally delivered.

After lunch, we went on a tour of the various sites in Aswan.

Aswan High Dam

The high dam was built back in the 1970’s to replace the original dam built back in the 1900’s...both were built to help control the flow of the Nile. It is the source of a whole boatload of hydroelectric power for Egypt. Other than driving across the bridge and getting out to take some pictures of Lake Nasser, there really isn’t much else to do at the dam. The Hoover dam this isn’t. The building of the dam lead to the creation of Lake Nasser, which at 500 kilometers long, is the largest man made lake in the world. It also resulted in the destruction of many Nubian (one of the indigenous populations of Egypt) villages and the relocation of some ancient temples.

Philae (Isis) Temple

This is the first place that really exceeded my expectations during the trip. This is partly due to the size of everything and the quality of the hieroglyphics and reliefs, but also partly due to the location. The Temple is located on an island, and requires a short boat ride from the shore. One thing that does distract one from fully appreciating the Temple is the fact that the Coptic Christians defaced a lot of the reliefs that depicted the pagan gods and religious ceremonies. You can see many instances of the Coptic cross throughout the temple, as it was at one point converted to a church. The Philae Temple was almost lost to us by the construction of the Aswan High Dam. However, it was rescued by UNESCO (go UN!), which funded moving the temple from its original island to a new one that was higher above the Nile. This took about 8 years to complete.

Unfinished Obelisk

Aswan is the source for most of the granite used to construct obelisks and embellish pyramids, which were built mostly of sandstone. For lack of a better term, the Unfinished Obelisk is a monument to failure. The site contains the remains of an obelisk that was never finished because the stone masons discovered that the rock they were carving had a big crack in it. They got three sides of it completed before they came to this determination. Poor guys.

Although it is just a big hunk of rock, going to the site does give you an appreciation of the tremendous effort (and luck) it took to make an obelisk out of a single piece of rock. When the Egyptians decided to build a monument, they did it right.

Sound & Light Show

Although I really enjoyed the Philae Temple during the day, I absolutely loved it during the night. The actual content of the show was OK, but getting to see the temple lit up at night was stunning. Another opportunity for some good photos.

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[Milk Shake]

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Moo Moo. Moo. Moooooooooooooo. Oh yeah... Moooooooooooooooooo!