Abu Simbel and Felucca Cruise

4:45am arrives very early on Tuesday. Particularly when you only returned to the hotel 7 hours prior. We pick up breakfast bags from the Tolip Hotel where we stayed last night (I highly recommend this hotel if you are coming to Aswan) and loaded the bus for the three hour drive through the desert to Abu Simbel.  Abu Simbel is 200 km from Aswan. Once out of the city we drive for miles on end without seeing a single vehicle. I wouldn’t want to have an automotive break down out here. From time to time there are signs of humanity. They are building a new highway through this desert so we pass road crews as well. When we do come to villages and towns, there are checkpoints that we have to pass through. 

The large temple of Ramses II

Abu Simbel has two temples carved out of the facade of the mountain. The large temple is for King Ramses II and the small temple is for his chief wife Queen Nefertari. Lake Nasser, where the temples sit, is the largest man made lake in the world. The lake was created to preserve the monuments of the Nubian desert. UNESCO created an international mission to rescue the monuments of the Nubian desert, as they were constantly being damaged by the Nile floods. The temples of Abu Simbel were moved from their original location which is within eyesight of their current location. The mountain and monuments were covered in a thick layer of sand to preserve them while they were cut in layers to prepare for the move. They built a concrete dune to build to hold the monuments in their new location. The monuments, colonnade halls, and chambers were then all reconstructed in the concrete dune.  It took 4 years to move them. The four figures in front of the temple are representations of Ramses II as a god, and the gods Amun Ra, Re-Horakhte, and Ptah. 

The colonnade hall of the large temple 

The ceiling in the colonnade hall of the large temple 

Nefertari’s figure is as large as the gods that are depicted by her in front of her temple. This is unusual for the wife of a king. Queens who ruled would have statues as large as the gods because they were representatives of gods, but the wives of pharaohs were considered merely human and typically not awarded such stature. 

The small temple of Nefertari

Ten of us in the group have opted to do two days aboard a traditional sailing vessel called a felucca. The floor of the vessel is covered from end to end and side to side in a huge, thick pad on which we will sit, sleep, and eat, and is lined with pillows and thick woven blankets. It is very peaceful as we set sail down the Nile in a zigzag pattern headed for Luxor. We only sail during the day so we dock at nightfall and have a communal meal and a lot of conversation before we turn in for the night. A word of warning: Nile mosquitos are vicious! Wear long sleeves and long pants and bring the insect repellent. 

I awoke early our first morning and snapped a photo of everyone else still tucked in for the night. 

My felucca companions! 

We had docked for the night next to our accompanying motorboat, and two other feluccas with their motorboats. I awoke this morning before anyone else, and after going to the toilet on our motorboat, I decided to go for a brief stroll on the shore. Eventually I wandered to the top of a nearby steppe before it occurred to me that I was too unfamiliar with Egyptian wildlife to go wandering, so I turned and came back to the felucca. Once everyone was awake we had breakfast and went to the top level of the felucca to do some yoga in the morning sun. We started on our full day’s peaceful journey zigzagging up the Nile at about 10, passing by green pastures with farmers bringing their cows and donkeys down to the river for water. We also see various other riverboats, modern sailboats, and traditional feluccas along the way. Trains rumble by on the rail line that sits not 50 yards away from the river bank. The topography of the land changes from green fields dotted with trees, to desert cliffs, to lush palm vegetation crowding close to beaches. At about 1:30 we stop at one of those beaches for lunch and take time to wade in the Nile, interacting with some local children who were selling wares down by the shore. After a couple of hours we resume our leisurely journey. We docked again for the night at 5pm, this time with a host of riverboats, feluccas, and escorts to keep us company. After dinner on top of the felucca we had a bonfire on the beach, then turned in for the night. Tomorrow morning we will rejoin the rest of our group and travel to Luxor. 

Dipping my feet in the waters of the Nile River