Abu Simbel – Great Temple of Ramses II
First thing in the morning Ron, Chris and I went with a few
others from the tour group to the airport to catch a small plane ride to Abu
Simbel.
Abu Simbel (spelled both Simbel and Simbil) is a modern ancient marvel made out of an ancient
monument. The temples are located in
southern Egypt on the bank of Lake Nasser.
There are two temples that were originally carved in a mountainside during
the reign of Pharaoh Ramses II dedicated to him and his queen Nefertari. The modern marvel part of this temple is that
it was originally located in an area that was to be submerged after the
creation of Lake Nasser due to the Aswan High Dam. The temple was moved from the mountainside in
1968 to its current location on an artificial hill high above the Lake Nasser
reservoir.
.jpg) |
| You can only take pictures in the entrance way if you hold the key of life and pose. |
.jpg)
This was an extra excursion that we added on to the trip and
it was well worth the time and money to see this amazing temple and learn about
what it took to save it when the dam was built.
.jpg)
Philae Temple
After returning from Abu Simbel we joined the group for a
tour of the Philae Temple, the holiest site for Isis worshippers. The temple was half submerged after the Aswan
Dam was built. It was completely dismantled
and then rebuilt on the island of Agilika.
When touring the temple we saw some very old graffiti, the tour guide said
Napoleon did the graffiti but who knows if that is true.
Aswan
 |
| Location "A" is Abu Simbel on this Google Map |
Located at the ancient trade crossroads of India, Egypt and
Africa you will find the southernmost Egyptian city Aswan. This
is also the place where I finally found a pharmacy and bought myself some Cipro
antibiotics over the counter. After
asking my tour guide and the cruise ship staff several times to help me get
antibiotics I decided to take things into my own hands and find a
pharmacy. The antibiotics I bought
worked and every day I felt a little better.
Aswan can best be described as the place where the desert
meets the Nile. We were fortunate enough
to take a felucca (a small Egyptian sailboat) ride over to Kitchener’s Island
to see the lush botanical gardens. The
felucca ride was fun. Our security guard
was teaching us about the area and the boat captain was entertaining. This was one of those times on the trip where
we realized these guys were way better than our tour guide and we weren’t sure
if anything she had told us on the trip was true.
 |
| "Can you hear me now?" Yes, our Nubian Felucca captain is on his cell phone. |
 |
| Our security guard / tour guide for the afternoon and the boat captain |
Our walk around the gardens was lovely. It was interesting to see all the cats and
dogs that live on the island in the beauty of all the plants. They are pretty lucky to have such a
spectacular view. The gardens were
unique because on the other side of the river bank was the desert and miles of
sand.
When the felucca brought us back to Aswan we got back on the
bus and returned to our Nile cruise ship.
It was the last night on the boat…thank goodness!
No comments:
Post a Comment