Hello all,
Last night we headed over to Elephantine Island for dinner. At the beginning of the first dynasty (there were 30 dynasties in ancient Egyptian times) there was a fortress built here, which became an important customs and trading centre. The rushing of flood waters were first heard here every year, and on our boat ride across we saw examples of where the ancient Egyptians had made markings of the water line in order to help them determine when the floods were over.
From our boat, we also saw the Old Cataract Hotel which is where Agatha Christie stayed whilst writing ‘Death on the Nile’, as well as some isolated buildings in the distance amongst the desert sands.
Then we arrived to the Nubian village. The Nubian people are indigenous people in the Sudan and southern Egypt regions. Many of them were forced to relocate when the dams were built at Lake Nasser. They have their own unwritten language, as well as speaking Arabic and learning English when they go to school.
We walked through the village and saw lots of houses made out of mud bricks and clay. People here build one room for their family and one for their animals such as cows, donkeys etc. Due to the intense heat in summer (up to 45-50 degrees), they come home and have a break/rest between about 1 and 5. It’s unusual to find people out and about during this time.
We arrived at the family’s house for dinner. I love this part of G Adventures tours. They use a lot of the money you pay for your tour (something like 85% of it) to support local people and keep it in the community. Mudi told us that the family we were visiting had been working with G Adventures for over ten years, and had been able to make many upgrades during that time to their house as a result of the partnership. Before the revolution in 2011, G visited with tours twice a week. Unfortunately afterwards this then dropped to just once every two months for quite a long time. Tourism is slowly recovering now.
They had two very cute kids present, and Keith on our tour spent a lot of the time teaching them to make funny noises using their hands and mouths.
We were treated to a delicious dinner in an upstairs room including different tagines, chicken, rice and some yummy soup.
After dinner, a local lady came by to do some henna and Mudi encouraged us to partake to again support the local community. I let her go freestyle on my arm and have ended up with a gorgeous band, flower and swirls. I’m told depending on how much/how intensely I wash my arm it could last up to four weeks. I’ll be at a wedding in 2.5 weeks, but decided it would actually look quite nice with the dress I’m planning on wearing.
Once back, we headed to bed fairly early due to our early wake up for Abu Simbel. We set off at 4.30am and I was surprisingly alert. The bus heating was turned on and I took off three of my layers because it was waaaay too hot! While everyone else slept, I used the window to keep me cool and stared out the window at the beautiful stars and eventually the sunrise.
After 3.5 hours, we arrived at the temples of Abu Simbel. About 20km away from the border of Sudan, these two temples are over 3000 years old (built approx 1250 BC) and from the time of Ramses II. He’s one of the pharaohs whose mummy I saw at the Egyptian Museum and whose statue I saw in Memphis, and is the one who ruled for 67 years. The temples are for him and for his main wife, Nefertari. She must have been much more beautiful than the other 51 wives to get her own temple!
Abu Simbel was carved into the mountainside, and was lost due to the shiftings of the Nile and sands until 1813 when Swiss explorer Jean-Louis Burckhardt found one huge statue head in the sand. By 1817 the sand had been cleared and the temples’ interiors could be visited.
Like Philae Temple and eight others in this region, Abu Simbel would have been swallowed up by Lake Nasser if it weren’t for UNESCO. In the 1960s, the temple was cut using wires and saws into thousands of blocks weighing between 10-40 tonnes. These were moved to another mountain 65m higher than its original spot (I’ve attached some photos from Google) and put back together like a giant LEGO model. This took four years and cost $40 million US. Workers worked day and night to ensure nothing collapsed. Many different countries were involved, and some of them were given other temples to take back to their countries and place in museums. Many other temples were lost under the water.
Luckily for us, UNESCO and all the workers did a magnificent job and you wouldn’t even know the temple had been moved because it has been so meticulously saved.
As we rounded the corner and got our first glimpse, it took my breath away. The four statues at the front of Ramses’ temple are over 20m tall and represent him, two sun gods and Ptah. Ramses was considered a very strong and powerful ruler, and was one of the first to organise a “peace agreement”. He married an enemy’s daughter so they wouldn’t attack and would keep peace instead.
The temple gets absolutely packed on February 22 and October 22. February 21 and October 21 are Ramses’ birthday and coronation date respectively. He has the original temple built so that on these two days of the year, sun would light up the inner most room of his temple. UNESCO tried their best, but the angle was slightly off with the reconstruction and so now the sun lights it up one day later. Pretty good effort!!
I explored the temples with Peter for the next 1-2 hours. We took photos for each other and then headed inside. No photos except from the doorway, but I’ve saved some from Google as the interior was magnificent.
We walked around inside taking in the columns and the scenes. At Philae yesterday the scenes jutted out from the stone, today they were carved inwards on the stone. The paintings (including colour) were so clear cut and fresh in some parts that it was crazy to think they were thousands of years old. I can’t use words to describe them, I just stared in astonishment. Mudi wasn’t lying when he said this would probably be the highlight of our trip.
We then went to Nefertari’s temple which was slightly smaller but equally as amazing inside.
Afterwards, myself, Peter, Lara and Keith went and watched a video about the deconstruction and reconstruction of the temples. It was very interesting but had a hilarious soundtrack that didn’t match the video at all. We all laughed a lot!!
I bought my magnet and some rulers for kids at school at the market. They’re so cool - they have traceable hieroglyphics on them!! The man at the market told me I had a “face like snow” and asked Keith if he had two wives. Oh dear!
We drove the 3.5 hours back through the desert. The higher position of the sun this time meant that many mirages appeared in the distance that looked like pools of water.
Once back, most of the group went out for a sit down lunch. Myself, Peter, Kristene and her two sons Brabbyn and Harrison decided to go walking instead. We ended up in some questionable streets, but definitely saw Egypt ‘off the beaten track’! We were greeted by lots of friendly kids.
Eventually we got to the Unfinished Obelisk. This was being carved out of the quarry where it now lies and was to be a huge obelisk for Queen Hatshepsut. After a fair amount of carving, a fault/crack was found in it so it the project was abandoned. It was interesting seeing the quarry area surrounded by the city.
I’m really glad I’ve found a group of people that are like me and prefer to wander rather than sit. Everyone is really lovely but I don’t need three sit down meals a day and it’s nice to have others to wander around.
Once back, Mudi took us to the local market. We had a man show us spices etc. I bought some spice mix and a magnet and then I was done. Everyone was more pushy here than Cairo, I think because I’m in a group of tourists now.
We had crepes for dinner. I had a kofta one and then a banana and Nutella one for desert. They were delicious! Then we got s hilarious micro bus home. There was hardly any room and Peter, Keith, Lara and I were all jammed in the back and had a good laugh!
Unfortunately I've come back to the hotel and realised I am covered head to toe in a rash. I really can't catch a break on holidays but as always will make the best of it. I'm hoping it's just because today was very windy/sandy so my skin has freaked out.
Tomorrow we will be sailing down the Nile on a felucca (local sailing boat). I’ll try to post a blog but am unsure if I’ll have reception.
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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