My Last Day

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Spent my last day going around to a few remaining places in town. The first stop was the Unfinished Obelisk. Since ancient times, Aswan has been known for its quarries, and most of the stone of all the Egyptian monuments originally came from this area. The Unfinished Obelisk was just one day abandoned because of a crack, but it would've been the single largest obelisk made by the Egyptians. Then drove down to the High Dam. An interesting place, especially given the history. During the over 10 years it took to build the dam, an undocumented number of workers died, some by explosions, others by horrible snake bites. And I didn't know that the High Dam was actually the second dam - the first is from 1902 and is closer to Aswan.

Ended at probably the best known temple in the area, Philae, which had to be moved again because of the flood waters. A great place, especially because you take a boat ten minutes or so over to it. And Philae was also a Christian Church for a long time, and inside you can clearly see how the Christians converted an Egyptian temple into a suitable church. Another interesting clash of both history and religion that I've especially noticed in Egypt.

Rest of the day spent getting the details together for my trip home. It's going to be intense and mind-numbing. I leave tomorrow in the afternoon for a quick flight back to Cairo. Then I wait at the airport until 6 AM the following day for a flight to Paris; then I finally fly into the States at Detroit, until at last making it back to Denver by 7 PM on the 22nd. Should be fun.

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