Still in Aswan...

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Yesterday we sailed on a felucca down the River Nile. It was very peaceful and scenic. The current goes from south to north and the wind from north to south so when you are heading into the wind the breeze is nice... The Nile River goes for 5,000 miles and is the longest river system in the world. When we docked on the side of the Sahara desert, I was surprised at how clean the Nile water was, we bottled some and it was crystal clear.... they say that the Nile refreshes itself everyday by the strong currents. A couple on the tour decided to drink the Nile water, they say that you can drink it but they don't recommend it and I don't intend to try it either!!! guess we'll just check to see if they are alive tomorrow and then we'll know if it really is drinkable!!! It seems so crazy when you see that the Sahara Desert meets the side of the Nile, two extremes so close together, massive amounts of water right on the side of the desert!!

When you are floating peacefully on the felucca you can hear the faint sounds of singing of egyptian music... mostly mens 'bucks' parties... if only they were that laid back at home!! just a bunch of men on a boat with no alcohol celebrating together!! hehe!!

We attempted to climb one of the dunes in the Sahara, but I quickly decided that the view was just as good from the bottom!! the sand is the softest I have ever felt and you sink up to your calves when you walk in it and talk about HOT!!! I filled a bottle with sand to keep.

Got the wake up call at 4am this morning so that we could fly to Abu Simbel which is situated on the southern most part of modern day Egyptian soil. In antiquity, the territory of Abu Simbel was part of Lower Nubia among whose conquered population the prescence of the massive temples were intended to inspire awe of Pharaoh's Majesty.

They carved it 3,000 years ago in rock, 30m deep. They had to build it this was as they were against the current of the Nile and had no way of sending building materials down. Rameses second wife was Nefertari meaning 'You are my beauty' which was an Egyptain name, and made her the Goddess of Love, even though she was Nubian and not of royal blood. He built her a tomb and the smaller of the temples and took her as his first wife. Then all others wanted to be like Rameses II and married Nubian women and slowly the people in this area became Egyptian. Abu Simbel is about half and hour from Sudan.

One of the heads of the four statues that are out the front is missing it's head, it fell of the hill as a result of an earthquake.

Inside the temple you note that they were once painted up in the most important Egyptian colours, blue for the sky, black for eternity and gold.

Many years ago the Egyptians realised that the Temple would soon be under water due to the rising waters from ...... so to raise awareness they sent some of the King Tuts artifects on tour to raise awareness and money with the result of 70 countries coming back with ideas on how to save the temples.

Following construction of the High Dam at Aswan, Abu Simbel attracted international attention on account of the International effort to salvage it's temples from the rising waters of Lake Nasser which threatened to engulf them. A team of experts cut the mountain slope into transferrable blocks and re-assembled then on a safer site nearby. The success of this gigantic project has preserved for posterity a unique heritage of Pharaonic Egypt.... the plane was a little worrying!! We saw the sunrise as we flew, also notingthe contrast between the red sands of the Arabian Desert verses the white sands of the Sahara Desert, both which appear endless.... You can see the Nile in the distance. Abu Simbel was created on a massive scale.

The Nubians used to inhabit the land where Abu Simbel stood. Rameses was a very smart man who managed to take over from the Nubians without a war ever having to be faught. The Nubians welcomed the Egyptians into their land as the Egyptains came with a present - the Abu Simbel Temple.

The average life of an Egyptian is 40-50 years old. Rameses II lived to be 96 and had 12 wives, 90 sons and 100 daughters - talk about being tired!!!

That night after flying back to our hotel we had our Egyptain night where we all got dressed up. I had a bright blue outfit with plenty of jingly bling, that I'd managed to bargain for at the bizzare the night before. It was a little more revealing than I planned so with a few alterations and the addtional of clothes under it I was good to go!! it was a fun night where we all danced with the boat staff to traditional Egyptian music.

The following day I finally made it up to the top deck of our boat where I sunbaked and drank in the 45 degree heat on a banana chair reading a mazagine in between dips in the pool - this afternoon I truly felt that I was on holidays and could definitely get used to this!!!! It was still 40 degrees at 6pm.

I'm proud to say, an Egyptian man offered 5 million camels to buy me.... Dad, I might be finally worth something!!! hehe!!

We went to the markets last night with my 'husband' which I borrowed, Jose from Columbia. He was supposed to protect us in the markets but I think we ended up doing a bit more protecting of him!! The atmosphere is very similar to that of Thailand when you are wandering around!!!! The men were very impressed by Jose's 3 wives!! told him that he must be a very good, strong man!!! so then they tried to sell him Viagra!!!

I know that some people were worried when I said that I was going to Egypt, both because of the customs here and for terrorism, but I have decided that terrorism belongs to no country.... the attacks last month proved that.... not to mention the attacks that have followed in the previous days including in Egypt (and I wrote this part originally before the lastest bombings)

After that we visited Edfu Temple took which took around 200 years to build. The paint is almost gone from the walls but it has extensive carvings and paint - hence the reason that it took so long to build.

We arrived at the temple in a horse and cart. I can't believe that there were so many horses and carts. They then wait for you to see the temple and then take you back to where you started from.

When Christians fled to Rome they hide out here and removed the faces of the carvings of Horus throughout the temple as he was the wrong god, which was such a shame. They chipped out his eyes so that he couldn't see them, chipped off his hands so that he couldn't help them and his legs so he couldn't walk to them.

Only the King is allowed in the Sanctuary Room (Tomb Room) to pray to the Gods. He would pray and ask the god when Nile would flood for farming and they would take the prettist women in full dress and makeup and throw her into the Nile to make the Nile happy and bring on the flood - it was definitely a tough spot to be a woman and I'm sure that it still is...

After listening to the history of most of the famous Pharoahs, we've come to the conclusion that alot of the unions were insestuous!! They did this to keep the bloodline. The story of Horus (The Falcon God) comes about by A sister marying her brother, Osirus, to make him a Pharoh, but his brother got jealous and decided to kill him. He went about this by taking the measurements of Osirus without him knowing and making a coffin off Osirus's measurement. At a party they were all at, the brother said that he would donate the coffin to whomever it fitted, and when everyone climbed in and tried it, it didn't fit anyone except his brother Osirus and whilst he was laying in it they locked it. I don't know what the rest of the people were thinking at this point and why no one got him out but the story goes the brother then cut Osirus up into 14 peices and scattered it across Aswan, but his 'manhood' got eaten by a fish... his wife was upset, naturually, and became an bird and flew over the land gathering all the peices, she wasn't able to find the final peice so she made him one from a peice of clay. She then stitched him back together and he came back to life and they were then able to have a child! Bear with me, I'm not making this stuff up either!!! They named their son Horus and when he grew up he wanted to avenge the original murder of his father so he tracked down the brother and captured him and made him a hippopotomus (apparently the worse thing you can be!!) He did spear him but decided not to kill him for some reason.... They say this this story and when you see hippopotomuses it represents the struggle between good and evil.

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Photos

Pyramids!
The three pyramids

Camel
On my first Camel!

Pyramids!
Me with the middle pyramid

Pyramid & Sphinx
The two famous things...