We began Friday with by flying from Cairo to Abu Simbel, a tiny town at the southern edge of Egypt. Our tour had chartered a flight on the mysterious (to us) Petroleum Air Services. The airline's main service is providing flights to off shore drilling sites. And it looks like they have a side business shuttling tourists.
Snacks on the flight.
This is the site worth a 2 hour plane ride to see: the temples at Abu Simbel built by Ramses II. Ramses was a bit of an ego maniac Most pharaohs waited until they died to be deified, but Ramses declared himself a god while he was still alive. He built this temple to commemorate his victory over the Hittites in the Middle East, but on the southern end of his kingdom to intimidate his enemies, the Nubians. This temple is far away from the center of Egypt and shows Ramses' power and control over the land.
The four statues of Ramses at the front of the temple are almost 70 feet tall.
Several more heroically sized statues of Ramses decorate the inside of the temple. The walls and ceiling are carved and painted.
Most of the scenes on the wall depict Ramses smiting his enemies.
The holy of holies contains statues of Ramses with three other gods. The architecture of the temple is precisely engineered so that sunlight only reaches this room twice a year, once on February 22 (Ramses' birthday) and again on October 22 (Ramses' coronation day). For this photo it is lit by electricity.
Every site we visited in Egypt was carved with the names of archaeologists from the 1800s, like this example on Ramses' ankles. Modern archaeologists would not add graffiti to ancient monuments.
Ramses built a second temple for his favorite wife, Nefertari. This is a pretty unusual choice for pharaohs to honor their wives. The temple decorations show his high opinion of Nefertari as she is represented the same height as Ramses in the facade of the temple.
Her temple is not as large or as detailed as Ramses' temple. For example, where Ramses had lifelike statues inside his temple, Nefertari had heads on columns.
One of the tomb monitors offered to take a photo of Becky holding a giant ankh key. Becky just thought he was being nice until he asked for a tip. What? She did not give him any money and avoiding going back into the tomb as long as we were at this site. Becky never got used to Egypt's tipping culture and continued to think people were offering to do simple things from kindness, when really they just wanted a tip.
This is a photo of the hillside next to Nefertari's temple. If it looks like the mountain was cut apart and put back together, that's because it was.
Ramses built the temples next to the Nile River. In the 1960s, Egypt decided to build two dams along the Nile River to control flooding and provide electricity for the country. It was clear from the plans that the dams would create a lake and that the temples at Abu Simbel would end up underwater. This sign shows the original site of the temples and how they were moved above the level of the lake. Engineers cut the entire mountain into blocks and reassembled them on higher ground.
After visiting Abu Simbel, we returned to the airport to catch a flight to Aswan. This is a photo of Becky's boarding pass. All of the passes were identical. An agent collected our passes at the gate. We wonder if they reused the passes for another flight.
We arrived in Aswan near sundown. The Muslim holy month of Ramadan began at sundown which meant the sound of calls to prayer and fireworks. We didn't anticipate learning as much about Islam as we did and it was a great part of our trip. Muslims fast from sundown to sunup for the month of Ramadan. This means no eating or drinking. They end their fast with 3 dates, a sip of water and prayer. Then they have a huge meal called Iftar with family and friends. They can eat and drink until the first call of prayer which happened around 4:30 am while we were in the Middle East. During Ramadan, shops open late and stay open late. People who can shift their day become more nocturnal, but not everyone can shift. For example, our tour guides were Muslim and continued to fast even as they led us through hot tombs and temples. They felt their ability to fast shows mastery of their spirits over their bodies. Generosity is an important part of Ramadan and we saw shop owners giving plates of food to strangers.
In Aswan we transferred to a cruise ship that was our home for the next 4 days. The rooms were small but comfortable. Cruising the Nile was a remarkably convenient way to see the beautiful sites located in the middle of Egypt.
Friday night ended with Nubian music and dancing. Our jet lag was catching up to us and the music and spinning dancers seemed very other worldly.
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