Blogs from Aswan, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa

An overnight train from Cairo to Aswan was memorable but not something I would want to do again. Aswan is the nearest city to the Abu Simbel site built by Ramses 2. It still takes several hours to drive there. It is amazing to look at some of the old photos of how the structures were relocated to avoid loss by flooding when the Aswan Dam was built. Similarly in Aswan the temple of Phillae was moved and rebuilt. Like a giant jigsaw puzzle where lives were marked with numbers then rebuilt. Huge effort indeed. Another highlight of the time in Aswan was a felucca boat ride. It was such a peaceful experience. Fabulous! One afternoon my sister and I took ourselves off to the Old Cataract hotel where we paid 500 EGP for entry which ... read more

The day didn’t start too well for me (Lesley). I was upset that the people who were the most anxious about the trip before we left and wanted to cancel, refused to wear masks. I’m afraid I got quite cross at breakfast. We then left on the bus to go to a new embarkation point with a decent gangplank to travel up the Nile to Elephantine Island. This island is important to the Jewish community as papyri documents have been found relating to the oldest Jewish diaspora community. The site itself is much bigger than I thought it would be. It is 1200 meters from north to south and 300 meters at its widest point. It is believed that it was called Elephantine because from the air the island looks like an elephant’s tusk. However, how ... read more

This is the first kosher tour from Israel to Egypt. Our day started early meeting the group and our tour leader Cindy Kline at Ben Gurion airport at 9.30am. We were travelling on a tour entitled “In the footsteps of the Exodus” with scholar-in-residence Rabbi Professor Joshua Berman. Rabbi Berman is professor of Tanach at Bar-Ilan university, Tel Aviv and has served on the international advisory committee of the Museum of Bible, Washington D.C. and his pioneering work on archaeological evidence for the Exodus has been featured in the Wall Street Journal. As our flight was not until 1300 we hung around the airport with our friends Ellie and Steve. Our short 1.5 hour flight to Cairo was uneventful and then we had a four hour wait at Cairo airport for the 1.5 hour flight to ... read more

20th March Boat ride on the Nile #heygo http://www.heygo.com On the northern end of the First Cataract, marking ancient Egypt's southern frontier, Aswan has always been of great strategic importance. In ancient times it was a garrison town for the military campaigns against Nubia; its quarries provided the granite used for so many sculptures and obelisks. Our virtual trip was a boat ride on the river Nile. As we sailed along the river we saw sites of Noble's tombs, the famous Kitcheners Island and the Nubian villages. The Dome of Hawa is the rocky mountain on the western bank.The mountain is approximately 130 meters high and has carved graves of nobles and priests of Aswan from the era of the ancient Egyptians. The tombs of the Dome of Al-Hawa are distinguished by that they were nobles, ... read more

I am using someone’s hotspot so this entry will not have photos until I have better wifi. Last night we got on the train for the overnight to Aswan. The compartments are small, bunkbed style. Caroline from Australia is my roommate. They served us a good chicken dinner, then to bed. The coach jerks around from time to time, but the motion of the train is good for sleeping. We got to Aswan and brought our luggage to the hotel. The rooms weren’t ready yet so we dropped them off and went to the Philae Temple Complex. Philae (/ˈfaɪliː/; Greek: Φιλαί, Arabic: فيله‎ Egyptian Arabic: , Eg... read more