Off to Abu Simbel

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After a great sleep, we get breakfast delivered to our room, just a selection of breads (a little on the firm side) and tea or juice.

I brave a trip to the bathroom to find that the reason you can’t use it when stopped at stations is because there is nowhere for ‘stuff’ to go but outside! I’d hate to be a perway walker here!

Looking outside as we go along, there are a lot of farms and people dressed more traditionally, not many shirts and pants by the men but lots of the long robes. There are heaps of donkeys though, being ridden, used with little carts, carrying stuff…

We get to Aswan about 9ish and are met but another Ahmed who tells us the convoy to Abu Simbel leaves at 11am so he will take us to a hotel where we can hang about until about 10:30am. So we went to the Marhaba Palace Hotel. They charge us 10 Egyptian Pounds and for that we can make ourselves at home without having a room though. So we go to the pool for a while, we don’t swim; the pictures make it look a little (maybe a lot) less green than it really is! By then it’s time to get collected.

THE STRANGEST CONVOY EVER

We go to a meeting point that has a huge armed presence; it’s probably the most weapons in one place of our whole trip. They even have nail spikes crossing the road till they decide you can go in. It’s also a rule that you have 2 drivers.

There are about 5 vans like our Toyota and a couple of big tour buses. When we get going there will be a van full of armed police at the front and rear.

We’ve been given a lot of explanations why this is done -
1. Because the area between Aswan and Abu Simbel is uninhabited
2. Because a lot of people break down
3. Because if you don’t go the right way you will end up in Sudan or Libya
4. Because there are bandits who hijack people out there

At the end of the day, who knows! Tim thinks everyone should have been given a gun, most especially him and he’s still put out that he didn’t!

At the start it seems so important that we all stay together, the traffic in all directions is stopped when we come out and we all remain together. Then when we get out in the middle of the Sahara Desert everyone goes their own speed and eventually we end up alone. Our driver points out Sudan’s border and at this point we turn left to Abu Simbel. I don’t think you could ‘accidently’ end up in Sudan, there were some very big guns to help you reconsider which direction you need to be going in…

So needless to say, I’m still not clear about the necessity of the convoy, it’s not enforced once you get out of Aswan and it’s all just a little odd.

Finally three and a half hours later we arrive at the Seti Abu Simble Hotel. Getting out of the car it’s REALLY hot, we learnt that it was 52 degrees! I’m lovin’ it!!!!

SETI ABU SIMBLE HOTEL

This is where I again encounter the downside of women here. I have always been the official form filler of the 2 of us and so upon checking in to hotels that’s my job.

Well the guy in Reception was obviously displeased with this and his demeanor changed immediately I took the form, to the point snatching the form from me when I was looking in my bag for Tim’s passport number telling me I had not completed it correctly because the passport number was missing. Charming first impression, but cultural I guess.

And the guy who took our bags to our room struggles to be cheery too, perhaps it’s the heat.

The room’s really nice, and really cool, air conditioning is cranking! We have a balcony overlooking the lake coming off the Nile River and we have a King size bed!

We hit the pool for a while, beautiful area, 2 pools at different levels overlooking the lake. From above it looks like 3 levels of water. And the water is so nice and warm, could stay in it for hours, and a bonus it’s not green! Haha

THE GREAT ABU SIMBLE TEMPLE

When we’re picked up, the new guide is in the car also. At first we don’t think he has much English as he doesn’t say much when we ask him questions.

Once we have arrived and are actually walking to the Temple then he kicks into gear. He explains everything so well, to the point as a guide he is not permitted inside the Temple but has photos and he explains everything off the photos. When we go inside we are able to understand everything from what he has explained.

These 2 temples were moved when the new High Dam was built as they would have been destroyed under water. There is a large one that belonged to Ramses II (the big legless statue we saw in Cairo) and the smaller one he built for his favourite wife. It took 14 years to move and was broken down into smaller pieces to do it. The mountain that it is in is actually man made, the area they are now was actually flat, but when they finished moving them, they didn’t look right without a mountain.

When you walk into the temple past the enormous entry statues you walk into a big room with other rooms coming off to the sides. There are many engravings and stories in all the rooms. In one room they didn’t finish the engravings so you can see how it looked in the different stages.

The room at the very end is special in that it has 4 more statues in it and on the 22nd of October and 22nd of February (the days of Ramses birthday and coronation) when the sun comes up it shines on these statues for half an hour. The statues back then had gold on their faces and arms to reflect this light (the gold had since been stolen). When the Temple was moved, the modern engineers didn’t account for the Temple now being higher and so the morning light happens now a day later on the 23rd - oops!

We went into the Queen’s temple as well and it was just as amazing but had a lot more inscriptions of her and had a gentler feminine feel to it. Ramses has a lot of battles depicted showing his strength, hers had a similar scene with Ramses striking a man and she is standing behind him with her hand up telling him to stop, showing her good heart.

We aren’t allowed to take photos inside but can take some from at the entrance. Tim and I were standing next to each other, me with the camera and Tim on the video. The man looking after the Temple grabbed me by the arm so I was behind Tim, charming! So we take our photos and when we went to leave he holds his hand out to me for money. I just give him 1 Pound and he grumbles about it, perhaps he would make more money if he didn’t man handle the purse carrier!

There are also 4 other Temples that have been moved and are now in Germany, Spain, Holland and New York museums.

A policeman offers to take a photo of us together by the lake and then after even he asks for money - thought a policeman would just do something to be nice, but we were wrong.

ANOTHER SOUND AND LIGHT SHOW

We decide to see the Sound and Light show. It’s in Japanese tonight so we are given the English version to listen to on headphones. It’s a good show, better than Cairo for sure. It tells the story not only of Ramses but also of the moving of the Temples.

The seats are all made of stone and even with the layer of carpet that has been spread across, you could still feel the heat! It’s now a pleasant 30-35 degrees with a nice breeze blowing.

Impressively, I actually stay awake through the whole show this time!

We even got back to the hotel in time for Tim to watch the Australia/Germany game in the World Cup, but unfortunately it’s not playing in the room. He finds a news channel with updated scores and by the end he’s not a happy camper - no other team has lost as bad as Australia!

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