Temple of Philae/Abu Simbel

Hey everybody! Dwayne is going to write about Tuesday....I will cover Wednesday. Sorry that we missed you....we were worn out and had some technical difficulties.

Tuesday was our last day on the Nile Admiral
.
We were still in Aswan....we left the boat at 8:30 am and headed over to the High Dam.

It was built in 1960 to replace the original Aswan Dam. It is protected by the military, because if it were ever compromised it would wash away most of Egypt into the Mediterranean. There is a large monument at this site given to the Egyptian government by the Soviet Union. It was made to commemorate the friendship between the two countries. It is a lotus flower.

Next to the High Dam is Lake Nasser (The largest man-made lake in the word). It is 300 miles long and 22 miles across at its widest point. It stretches from Aswan down into the Sudan. There are many types of fish, as well as crocodiles that inhabit the lake.

From there, we then went to The Temple of Philae. This temple was dedicated to the Goddess Isis. It resides on Aglika island and is only accessible by boat. The boats are all controlled by the Nubians. They inhabited the area where Lake Nasser was formed. When the government built the dam and the lake they were forced to move. They are very dark in color and have a language that is exclusive to them. It is only a spoken language, it can't be written. Philae had to be reconstructed on the Aglika island because it was submerged six months out of the year.....so it was moved block by block to a higher location. We got to ride around from the backside of the temple to the front entrance by motorboat.



We got a detailed tour of the inside and headed back to our ship for for a felucca ride.

A felucca is a sail boat that is operated by sails and oars. They are also operated by The Nubian people. The felucca sailors were a father and his young son. It is summer vacation in Egypt, so the young boy was learning how to sail. We sailed down the Nile and were joined by some Nubian children in little row boats that sang us various nursery rhymes along the way....

We concluded our night with a Nubian show, in which I was asked to participate.....We had a nice time, but we were busy the the whole day. The temperature is well over 100 degrees during the day and the sun really wears you down... -D

Wednesday was amazing!! We checked out of the cruise and flew to Abu Simbel. This was my favorite temple by far!!! It is on Lake Nasser and pretty far south...only 50 kilometers from Sudan. Abu Simbel is made up of 2 temples...the small one is dedicated to Ramses' wife Nefertari

and the large one to Ramses. The small figures at his feet are his mother and wife.


The large temple has the tallest monuments in Egypt at 69 feet. This is another temple that had to be moved when the dam was built. I can't believe the Egyptian government was actually going to allow this monument to be submerged underwater!! Thankfully UNESCO convinced them to save it. It took 4 years to move the two temples....they used a hand saw to cut them into 2000 blocks that weighed about 20 tons each!! The other incredible thing about this monument is that inside the temple is a room called the Sacred Sanctuary. There are 3 statues of the Gods Ptah, Amun-Re and Re-Horakhty. There is also one of Ramses who wanted to be a God but who is only considered a demi-god. Prior to relocating, the sun shone on Ramses and 2 of the Gods on February 21st and October 21st. (Ptah is the god of darkness and remains in shadow.) In the new temple, this happens on February 22nd and October 22nd!! These are the alleged dates of Ramses' birth and coronation!!! We weren't allowed to take pictures inside either temple but the majority of the scenes show Ramses defeating his enemies in battle.

We stopped at the Nubian House for a delicious lunch. It's a hotel and a restaurant. The house was decorated beautifully with clothing, necklaces and straw baskets and was built with straw, mud and sand. Dwayne liked the air conditioners....they are run on water only instead of freon.

Then Dwayne saw a fire truck and got excited.....

Anyway, it's 8am on Thursday. Today we will go to the Egyptian Museum, a mosque and Khan Al-Khalili bazaar...a massive flea market free for all.