Cairo to Abu Simbel

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We started the trip south with a trip to Giza and the pyramids. It really surprised us to find that the pyramids are in a suburb of Cairo. Out of the bus and on to a camel. Lumbering over the sand dunes towards the Great Pyramid. What a sight to behold. the Sphinx was as enigmatic as anything we've come across. After the pyramids we went to the Cairo museum. A gigantic storehouse of Egyptian antiquities including Ramses I, the mummy that was found in the Niagara Falls museum in 1996. That night we took the night train from Cairo down to Aswan.

From Aswan we went on a long bus ride down to Abu Simbel to see the re-constructed temple of Ramses II. It was astounding to think that they took the temple apart, stone by stone and re-built it when they flooded the area after the construction of the Aswan Big Dam in the early '60s.



After Aswan we take a felucca up to Luxor. Can't wait.

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Photos

Face of Giza
Too bad the nose was missing.

Pyramids in the distance.
The first sight of the pyramids is over the desert and through the sandstorms.

Hamming it up on the camels.
Always fun riding the camels.

Proof we were there.
LG and me at Giza.

Abu Simbel
Fabulous carvings saved from the flooding of the Nile.

Ramses I
Huge carvings of Ramses I

LG at Abu Simbel
Beautiful reliefs at Abu Simbel

Re-constructed Mountains
The whole mountain was constructed to house the temple.

LB in Abu Simbel
A really amazing feat of construction.