Blogs from Lake Nasser, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa

Africa » Egypt » Upper Egypt » Lake Nasser October 29th 2012

Lake Nasser Cruise: Tuesday, October 23 Arrived in Aswan late last night. We visited the temple of Philae which had been moved to a different island because of the building of the High Dam. The amount of work involved moving these historic sites must have been overwhelming and took years to complete. We watched a documentary showing the different steps used dealing with these massive monuments and temples. Bought some interesting things from the vendors around Philae. Hanan had explained to some vendors how I was hassled at Edfu and they were all so apologetic and trying to make me feel better. I ended up buying a dress, shirt for Ross and trinket jewellery. Ah well. We crossed the lower dam and then visited the High Dam of Aswan. Off to our ... read more

I'm on a Boat, I'm on a Boat

Africa » Egypt » Upper Egypt » Lake Nasser February 13th 2012

Photo 2

pinchy85

After only about 3 hours sleep, I got up and took the train from Luxor to Aswan. There I got some breakfast, changed my Egyptian Pounds to Sudanese Pounds as I heard the rate was better in Aswan (it wasn't) and negotiated with a taxi driver to take me to the ferry port. I'm pretty sure the taxi driver was stoned for the whole journey and got a bit worried when we were driving through pure desert. He also spent the entire journey trying to sell me some weed. He couldn't understand why I didn't want to smuggle some illegal drugs into a country where they give 40 lashes if your caught drinking alcohol! At the ferry port, I had to go through about 6 or 7 checks for different parts of my ticket and God ... read more

A ferry between countries and continents

Africa » Egypt » Upper Egypt » Lake Nasser November 22nd 2010

Lake Nasser ferry

IndianaWoodward

On my penultimate day in Egypt, I sat in a bar watching the sun set over the banks the Nile, the massed fellucas floating past, and the sky turning red, as the sun disappeared and signalled the end to my time in the country. It started as just a place that I had to travel through before getting to countries that I wanted to see, but after 4 weeks here, I couldn't have asked for more. The smell of sheesha smoke in the air. The sound of dominoes hitting the table. Coffee being brewed. Friendly people. Fantastic monuments. Captivating deserts. Starry skies. Golden sand. Red sunsets. The Nile. Karnak. Siwa. It's been a lot more than I ever expected, and I'm slightly sad to move on that's for sure. But now, for Sudan, and here I ... read more

Gunga blessings from the Nile

Africa » Egypt » Upper Egypt » Lake Nasser October 29th 2010

Gunga

So many superlatives exist to describe the Nile: longest river in the world( 4,184 miles); supplier of water to drink; irrigation; food; fish; waterfowl; giver of papyrus reeds used to build boats. houses, and paper which allowed the Egyptians to become the first to write important documents around 3,100 BC. It flows from south to north making it confusing for visitors who think that Cairo should be in upper Egypt and Aswan lower when in fact, it is just the opposite. Today 95 % of the population of Egypt ( about 82 million) live within 12 miles of the Nile. The Nile is actually made up of two rivers: the White Nile, whose source is Lake Victoria, Uganda, and the Blue Nile, whose source is Lake Tana, Ethiopia. It flows through 9 countries. The White goes ... read more

Lake Nasser Cruise

Africa » Egypt » Upper Egypt » Lake Nasser September 16th 2008

Lord Kitcheners Island

Aley and Ron

Friday 12th September This morning after taking a Felucca ride to Kitcheners Island, we were sad to leave our Nile boat. Not only had we enjoyed the luxurious surrounds, delicious food and company of the crew, we had also made some good friends with our fellow travellers, our small English speaking tour group was all from all over the world, including Belgium, Canada, USA, Ukraine and fellow Australians. In the afternoon we transferred to our new boat the Eugenie, which was located on the high dam to start our next adventure, sailing for 3 nights to Abu Simbel. While still tied to the dock we took our first tour which was by small launch to Lalasha Temple, Beit El Wali and the Kiosk of Kertassi all of which had been relocated before the rising waters. We ... read more

Ferry to Wadi Halfa

Africa » Egypt » Upper Egypt » Lake Nasser January 14th 2008

Overloaded barge

AfricaBound

It's a 16 hour ferry ride from Aswan to Wadi Halfa. We arrived at the port at 11am ish and made it through passport control and the various checkpoints and numerous ticket checks and finally got on the ferry for noonish. It's nice, basic, we ended up with an inside cabin, which is actually quite nice, dark and cozy. We spent the better part of the afternoon on the top deck watching as the barge next to us gets loaded up with various goods including Twinkies. It's absolutely insane, we've tried capturing it in pictures, but not sure if even they can adequately describe the craziness. Finally the ferry left port at 8:30pm, so it was a good thing we brought all the snacks that we did, because we still had another 16 hours on the ... read more

Brief history of Egypt

The regularity and richness of the annual Nile River flood, coupled with semi-isolation provided by deserts to the east and west, allowed for the development of one of the world's great civilizations. A unified kingdom arose circa 3200 B.C. and a ser...more history

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