Egypt - The South

After thirteen hours on an Egyptian train (and some intermittent sleep), we arrived to Egypt's most Southern city - Aswan. The next several days would be spent exploring the area known as Upper Egypt (since the Nile flows north, the northern part of the country is considered Lower Egypt, the southern part is Upper Egypt).

Camel Riding and a Nubian Village

During our first day in Aswan, we ventured out onto the river in a motor boat and cruised along the shores of the Nile, taking in Elephant Island (where they used to import elephants for battle from Southern Africa), a variety of tombs along the western bank and some peaceful wildlife once away from the city. We stopped at a small cafe perched on a cliff for Hibiscus tea and to admire the sand dunes and then hopped back on the

boat in the early evening to motor on to the bank where camels were waiting to take us to a Nubian village for dinner. We each got to ride our own camel (assisted by a "camel boy") across a stretch of desert, watching the sunset behind a hillside where the country's first monastery sits. Riding a camel is not quite as easy as riding a horse...and my eager camel, Lulu, liked to be in front so there was certainly some "trotting" involved. It was a lot of fun and definitely a highlight of the day, though after an hour my backside was ready to disembark.

The camels dropped us off at a Nubian village that sits on the opposite bank of the river from Aswan. The Nubian people have been in this area for thousands of years and were one of ancient Egypt's primary enemies. Now they are officially part of the country, but their traditions and way of life are respected and most of them still live within their own Nubian communities. We were taken to the home of a local Nubian family for dinner. They gave us a tour of the house and prepared a traditional meal that included chicken, fish, soup, vegetable stew and some mushy green stuff that was sort of like spinach, but not quite. After the meal, the man of the house sat with us and described the traditions around Nubian marriages and weddings. The evening concluded with some of the local children coming in to drum, sing and dance with us. One little girl was particularly fond of me and marched right in, took my hands and didn't let go for the rest of the evening. She was quite cute and waved goodbye to me until we were completely out of site from the village.

Abu Simbel

In the wee hours of the next morning (i.e., 3AM), we sleepily boarded a small bus to venture South to the famous temple of Abu Simbel. It is a three-hour drive from Aswan, very near to the Sudanese border and in the heart of the desert. The government requires a daily tourist caravan of the various buses, vans and taxis flanked by tourist police...so there is not a lot of option about departure times. They prefer to leave extremely early so that you arrive around 7AM (before the heat becomes unbearable) and stay for a couple hours to take in the site. The temple was built by Ramses II for himself and he also build an adjacent temple for his wife Nefertari. The structure is colossal and a reminder from Ramses to those entering Egypt from the South that HE is Pharaoh of this land. In addition to his impressive statues outside the temple, the inside is also well preserved and includes a number of rooms and chambers decorated with hieroglyphics, carved scenes of war and offerings to the gods, and more statues. Some of the original paint is also still visible to give you a sense for how it might have looked a couple thousand years earlier.

Sailing the Nile

A highlight of our Egypt trip was the day we spent sailing down the Nile on a felucca (i.e., sailboat). We left late morning and boarded the boat, sprawling across the cushions and preparing for a day of relaxation. We spent the day reading, playing card games and backgammon, napping and hanging out with our group. We docked for lunch on a small island in the middle of the river, but had our meal on the boat, sitting around a plastic tablecloth spread across the cushions. The food on the journey was surprising good thanks to our Nubian chef on board. For the evening, we docked along the east bank - first course of business being to build our "temple" (i.e., toilet). We dug a hole into the ground, placed a toilet seat contraption over the top and surrounded it with a canvas wall. Better than the bushes I suppose. A number of us were put on firewood duty and climbed up the bank and walked into the brushy desert to gather large spiky branches of wood from the bush. We weren't too far from a local village and were passed by a couple local boys hauling loads on their donkeys (donkeys are still a common form of transport throughout the country, with the exception of in Cairo and

Alexandria). The boys snuck to the outskirts of our camp later in the evening to curiously observe the goings on around the fire. After another delicious dinner on the boat, we built a campfire and fired up the hookah. Our Nubian crew got out their drums and sang into the night - they are a very happy and laid back people. The stars were amazing and the moon quite full. We slept on the boat and I woke at 5:30AM as the first call to prayer sang out from the village nearby. I kept my eyes closed, but perked up my ears to listen and take in the the still and quiet, broken only by lapping water against the boat and the devout singing of the prayer. It was so peaceful. I drifted back to sleep again shortly after and rose with the group sometime after 7AM for Nubian pancakes.

Luxor and the Valley of the Kings

After our day on the boat, we headed north a couple hours to visit Egypt's capital from the New Kingdom - Thebes, now known as Luxor. The two major sites in Luxor are Karnak temple, the largest in all of Egypt, and the famous Valley of the Kings. We spent two days here at the Little Garden Hotel, which had a great rooftop area and a garden courtyard. Eric and I got the honeymoon suite on the roof, complete with full size bed (as hard as a rock), red satin bed spread, cheesy decor and mood lighting. It was quite hilarious...except for the fact that the lock was broken and we were constantly getting locked in or out of our room. While staying here, we also met a very friendly Egyptian couple and their two-year-old daughter who were in town for work/vacation from Cairo. They were fascinated with us and asked to video tape us and take photos with their daughter. I and another member from our group, Kim, spent some time chatting with them and learning about their life, work, family and other topics. The man enjoyed smoking Shisha with Eric and the wife shared with me the various ways to prepare Kushari (the local dish I like so much).

We were fortunate to have an excellent guide in Luxor named Shaimaa. She was extremely knowledgeable and kept the group captivated with the history and facts surrounding each ancient site. We visited Karnak Temple near sunset on the first day and were one of the last groups to enter so had the place almost to ourselves. It was a temple that was built and expanded by a number of Pharaohs over time and dedicated to Egypt's primary God during the New Kingdom, Amun-Re. It was the size of several football fields at least and had numerous statues, obelisks, a holy lake, courtyards, inner chambers and the "holy of the holies" - the inner sanctum at the end of the temple where the daily offerings of food and drink were given by the Pharaoh and the high priest to the god. This is also one of the temples where the Coptic Christians took refuge to escape the persecution of the Romans, and as a result, a number of the carved murals of Egyptian gods have been chipped away or defaced.

In addition to our explorations at Karnak, we spent a day venturing to the west bank of the Nile (ancient Egyptians always lived on the east bank, where the sun rises, and buried their dead on the west bank, where the sun sets) to the Valley of the Kings. We visited three tombs in the Valley of the Kings from three different periods of the New Kingdom. It was incredible how well preserved these are...many of them still have vibrant painted and carved murals and the construction of the tombs and chambers deep into the mountainside are impressive. It's worth a read on Wikipedia (link above) to learn more if you're interested. No cameras allowed, so unfortunately no photos to show.

We also did a quick visit to the Valley of the Workers. Contrary to common belief, Egyptologists now believe that highly skilled artisans and workers were hired to build the tombs of the Pharaohs. There are remnants of a village for these workers (the skills passed down from generation to generation) on the west bank and it is believed that they were the only people besides the royal family who knew the locations of the tombs. Commoners from the east bank were not allowed to cross to the west bank and and workers on the west bank were not allowed to cross to the city on the east bank. On their days off (evidence shows they had a 10-day work week and then two days off), they would focus on building and decorating their own tombs. We visited two such tombs and while the chambers are of course much simpler and smaller, the artwork and murals were astounding and almost perfectly preserved.

Our final stop on the west bank was to Hatshepsut's Temple, a grand structure carved into the side of the mountain with the inner sanctum being the only one that contains a passageway deep into the mountain to connect with her tomb on the other side of the mountain. Hatshepsut was one of the few female Pharaohs and ruled for nearly 22 years. With the support of the powerful Amun-Re priests, she took power from her young stepson after the death of her husband. When she died, her stepson, Thutmose III, assumed his place as Pharaoh and became the greatest conquerer of all the Egyptian kings. However, he was quite resentful of his stepmother and set about defacing many of her statues and cartouches to erase her from history so that she wouldn't be able to find her way to the afterlife. Initially, Egyptologists thought the temple was Thutmose's since he replaced her name with his own, but after greater investigation, they uncovered the temple's true owner and were able to learn more about the history.

Onwards to the Western Desert

Following our time in Luxor, we headed west into the desert to visit a number of oases over the next several days...