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Published: August 19th 2006
The main temple at Abu Simbel
One of the four collossi of Ramesses lost his head in an earthquake 2000 years ago and you can see it on the ground behind us.Well we thought Luxor was bad but the further south you go in Egypt the hotter it gets! Yesterday was a barmy 50 degrees which is rather warm and apparently they can get up to 55- 56 deg on a truly hot day. Fair enough though as it is the middle of the Egyptian summer and we are only a couple of kms from the Sahara Desert!
Anyway on Thursday morning we had a very early start (3am!) in order to travel south through the desert in convoy to Abu Simbel. Yes thats right a convoy with full military escort! We were happy to be baby-sat though, as Abu Simbel is only 40 km north of the Sudanese border (say no to civil war, ethnic cleansing and kids with AK-47s). It was a bit over 3 hours and our convoy arrived at Abu Simbel about 6.30am.
For those who don't know, Abu Simbel is where two incredible Egyptian temples are. Yes I know we seem to have visited more temples than we've had cold beers but these two temples are extra special and rank right up there beside the Pyramids. They were built by Ramesses II, who was one
Under the feet of Ramesses
They are just HUGE and I felt like an absolute dwarf beside them. of the greatest Egyptian Pharoahs, and he built them far to the south of Egypt so that his southern enemies would be in awe of his greatness. Each is carved deep into a mountain and has four massive stone collossi of Ramesses out the front staring at the rising sun. Unfortunately when they built the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s the resulting lake was due to flood the Abu Simbel temples, so the United Nations spent a lazy US$80 million dismantling and moving the temples to higher ground. You wouldn't know it though as they even built new mountains to house the temples!
What is also cool is that through the front door and down a long hallway that goes deep inside the main temple, are 4 seated statues of Ramesses and 3 gods, Ra-Horakhty, Ptah and Amun. The temple was constructed in such a precise way that for 5 minutes at dawn on Ramesses birthday and then again on the date of his death (Feb 20 and October 20) the sun shines directly down the hallway and on 3 of the 4 statues (it rightfully misses Ptah as he is the god of darkness). On no other
The Temple of Nefertari
There are two huge statues of her, each with a statue of Ramesses either side to protect her. day does the sun even shine through the door! They have no idea how the ancient Egyptians managed to get this so right as when they relocated the temples, no amount of modern mathematic and astronomy calculations could exactly replicate the sunlight effect, so now the dates are Feb 21 and Oct 21! I tell you these Ancient Egyptians were pretty sharp! The other temple is dedicated to Ramesses favourite wife Nefertari. Although the man had many wives and spawned over 100 kids, Nefertari was #1 in his eyes so he devoted a temple to her. Quite controversially he made her stone statues to be the same height as his, which simply wasn't the done thing back in chauvinistic Ancient Egypt.
After the long trip back from Abu Simbel the desert sun was at its hottest so we retreated indoors for the afternoon. Then in the early evening we had a sail on a Nile felucca, ending up at a Nubian village where we were hosted for dinner by the felucca owner. It was an amazing experience to walk through the village and our hosts were very friendly and showed us around their house as well, which is built
About to leave on the felucca ride
We were all lying on a cushioned mattress on the deck and most importantly we were in the shade! solely out of baked mud brick. Before dinner they brought out all their traditional arts and crafts and the girls got stuck into that, even getting henna tattoes on their feet and hands. Dinner was very tasty and was cooked in the traditional way so we got a good look into the local culture.
Finally a trip to Aswan wouldn't be complete without a trip to the Bazaar for a spot of haggling. I was looking for a couple of pashmina scarves as pressies for people back home and the guy started with 280 Egyptian pounds each! (1 NZD = 3.6 LE). I eventually got them for 25 LE each, which is a discount of at least 90%. And I'm thinking that these guys probably do sell a few for 280 LE to the real sucker tourists.
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Louise
non-member comment
Don't want to hear complaints about the temp - I live in that all the time! Great to hear about Egypt as heading there with my parents later in the year (when it is cooler). Have fun!