A trip through the Desert

Monday: December 6, 2010

Hello from somewhere on the Nile River! I’m currently sitting on board the M/S Semeramis II in cabin 325, a 5-Star Nile Cruise Ship traveling from Aswan to Luxor. Before I get to the amenities of this really nice ship, I must tell you about my long day.

As I mentioned at the end of the previous entry, we left the beautiful Pyramisa Isis Island at 3am (so I went to sleep at 1:15am finishing up the blog stuff and woke up at 2:15am—the hotel receptionist must have thought I was nuts asking for a wake up call). We took a motorboat across the Nile to a tour bus that was waiting for us. I can say for sure, however, that we weren’t the only people up at 3am to travel to Abu Simble since we joined dozens of other tour buses at a gate to the road to Abu Simble. Professor Ghaly said we need to travel in a caravan in case a bus breaks down or something since we travel 3 hours--200 miles—through the open desert. Personally, others and I think we had to travel in a caravan for other reasons, but I wont speculate.

I brought my neck pillow and my bagged breakfast (really it was a bag of assorted breads and a mystery meat) from the hotel, though both weren’t useful. I couldn’t fall asleep on the bus and instead looked out the window at the openness of the southern Egyptian desert. It literally goes on and on and on. Leigh and Allison—you were right, don’t go out into the desert alone, you will get lost and thirsty (I’ll get to the water situation soon). I even got to see the sunrise, which was awesome. What a beautiful view!

We got to Abu Simble (Abu means father—so if I remember correctly, Abu Simble means Father of the People/Land) at around 6:30am where we saw King Ramses II’s temple and Queen Nefertaty’s temple that Ramses built for her. Ramses didn’t build temples for any of his other wives and it is believed that Nerfertaty was his favorite wife. Apparently Ramses had favorite children and might have married two of his daughters, but he didn’t build temples for them.

On our way to Ramses’ temple, Shelby Cuomo mentioned, “Egypt is just so fun! Their monuments are so big!” This is an understatement to say the least. There were two temples at Abu Simble—the big one was King Ramses’ and the smaller one was Nefertaty’s. Early on kings were thought of as gods but as time went on, they were thought of as the sons of gods. Egyptians started worshipping kings again with King Ramses II since he did so much and therefore, his temple was god-like.

We couldn’t take pictures inside the temple, which was too bad, but it as impressive as the outside. The temples were carved into the sides of mountains, not carved into stones that were moved to the site, as is the case with many of the temples we have seen. Ramses’ temple was designed so that the sun would hit his statue in a room at the end of building on two dates: February 21st (my birthday) and October 21st. Today, people come from all over the world to see it. Since so many people want to catch the exciting moment, many people camp out overnight in front of the temples and there are large projection screens set up so people can view the moment from outside when the maximum capacity of the temple is reached.

Additionally, there are baboon carvings on the temple that face north who are praying for the sun to rise. There is also an unfinished room in Ramses’ temple, which could exist since there was not enough time to finish it or it could have been used as a holy room. Both temples face the same direction—facing Nubia “The Gold” (where the wealth came from)—apparently to protect Egypt by intimidating Nubian high officials and government to prevent them from attacking Egypt. The temples could have made Nubia think twice about attacking.

While these temples are grand in scale and currently overlook Lake Nasar, they weren’t always where they are located today. To protect the temples from being overtaken by water due the construction of the Aswan Dam, Egypt requested help from the entire world to save them. Three options were created to protect the temples: 1) Strong concrete walls around the temples—not acceptable because if it rained, it would be difficult to pump the rainwater out. 2) Create a stand to lift the temple up—not acceptable because it would cost a lot of money. 3) Move the temple to a higher location. The third option was used and the mountain the temple was in was cut into blocks using manual machines and saws. The façade and the inner areas of the temples were moved to a higher elevation above the original location. A new domed roof was built and sand was put on top of it. It apparently looks like it originally did; however, the sun now shines into the temple March 26th and October 26th. The details of the carvings of these temples are remarkable and there were so many hieroglyphics. They were truly amazing and definitely worth the 3 hour bus ride through the desert to get there.

We left Abu Simbel at around 9am and rode in a caravan back to Aswan and to the hotel to retrieve our luggage. Our luggage was taken to the cruise ship while we went on a motorboat to the Aswan Botanical Garden. I always seem to get anxious when my luggage is being moved without me, which has been happening often recently. Anyway, this Botanical Garden had plants from Egypt and all over the world and is one of the most important research facilities in Egypt. The garden was nice and had a lot of nice trees, but I didn’t see many flowers. There was a beautiful view of the Nile from the Gardens, which was nice to take pictures in front of. Melanie and Elana, among others, enjoyed the numerous cats that were hanging around the Garden’s cafeteria.

After the gardens, we took a motorboat to our cruise ship. I thought I lost one of my pieces of luggage (as did Mike), but we soon found it. It was around 2:30pm when we had lunch, so I was starving. It was buffet-style, so there were quite a few options for lunch. My stomach is okay again, but I’m not eating the beef (I haven’t all trip—I need a hamburger), so I had so pasta with cream sauce and a few bananas.

Time to relax, yet? Nope. After putting our bags away, cleaning up, and washing up, the boat docked and we visited the Kom Ombo Temple. We hadn’t seen a temple at night before and it was very different seeing this one in the evening. Actually, it is two temples joined together for the God Sobik and the God Horus. All around the temple you see human figures with crocodile faces because they worshiped the crocodiles (they were also afraid of them since they caused a lot of problems during flooding time). There were also calendars carved into the stone which told people how much tax they owed and when to pay it. The temple was built during the Greek-Roman time, is 90% sandstone, and is ~2,200 years old. Once we finished at the temple, we returned to our cruise ship for dinner. Like all meals on the ship, it was a buffet and I had pasta with tomato sauce. The buffet is included in the price of being on the ship, but drinks are extra. It is not nice to bring the water bottles we have accumulated the past few days for dinner, so I have been having a sip before meals and a lot after the meals. Good thing the room isn’t too far away from the dining room.

Even though the water isn’t free, the ship is very nice. It has four floors, with the top floor containing a sundeck and a pool. Jeremy, it looks like an Arthur pool. There is a dance club, billiards room, elevator, spa, shops, smoke room, and a bar. The smoke room is on the floor above at it stinks to go up there. The Nile Cruise industry is only a 25-year old business since they couldn’t do it before the construction of the dam because the Nile wasn’t deep enough. It is a very lucrative business and there are many ships on the Nile. The Internet isn’t free, it costs 30 pounds/hour ($5 USD).

I think I’ve had 2 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours and my body most definitely feels it. Surprisingly, I don’t feel “sea” sick since the Nile is pretty smooth unlike the ocean. We are waking up at 6am to leave the ship at 7am to visit Edfu Temple. So much for not waking up early, but I don’t mind it—I’m having a lot of fun learning about the interesting temples and ancient sites.

Keep those comments coming! I’ll answer any of them! Talk to you soon!