Who said this part of the holiday would be more relaxing????
A 4 a.m. wake up call started out today getting together day trip stuff for a 4:30 bus start to Abu Simbel, about 4 hours away. At 4:21 after we were given our takeout breakfasts rumours of coffee and tea upstairs percolated the consciousness and there was a mad scramble to get at least one cup in before departure (vile though it is…). Absconding with one of the boat’s pillows stuffed into my pack (not a theft as it sounds, only borrowing as we return tonight), we piled onto the bus and were off. It became more like 5 hours there with a toilet stop in the middle of nowhere, and a long security lineup at one checkpoint. Lots of evidence of police, and soldiers guarding Aswan dam bridge with tanks and machine guns (which look ancient – and their body armour doesn’t look up to much either, alas). The route we were on goes close to the Sudan border where the military are watchful. Once past the first checkpoint we were quickly into the real desert and everyone hunkered down for a good sleep. Always comfy in a bus…. breakfast was bread, more bread, and stodgy pastry. Yum.
We learned on arrival at Abu Simbel that its move wasn’t physically far, but the logistics of moving it up 60 m to keep above the level of Lake Nassar – created with the building of the Aswan dam – are pretty astonishing. You can see the cuts in the stone, but it was a pretty phenomenal job. Discovered originally by a French archaeologist who was on site with his son Simbel, when people came to see it first the young son told them the site belonged to him and his father (Abu meaning father) hence it was dubbed Abu Simbel….. a monument to Ramses III who made himself a God, its intent was to threaten the Syrians after the peace treaty not to come near Egypt again. Very reminiscent of the statues guarding Gondor along the waterway in “Lord of the Rings”…. though clearly it is the other way around.
There is also a temple to Queen Nefertiti and we were given a synopsis of what to look for inside both, which helps to understand the wall stories, and sent on our way. They both were stunning. Masses there to start with but the crowds dissipated by the time we left at 11 am; good for retakes of pics without the madding crowd. Extra here for a photography ticket again – the government is making lots with this new fee. It’s amazing to watch some of the people taking photos – selfies all the way around, and so engrossed with picture taking they’re not really looking – or barking orders to people to wait while boyfriend takes picture of girlfriend in the entrance, blocking egress AND ingress, while she fluffs up her hair and poses. Egads. Apparently something like 90% of the worlds pictures have been taken in the last two years with the explosion of phone cameras, which is entirely believable watching the behaviour this trip.
Vendors at sites, in towns, and on shore have been extraordinarily pushy and obnoxious – no engagement at all is needed to get through the vendors alleys set up on arrival and departure at a site which is hard for most – even a “no thank you” is engagement and there are multiple tricks played to engage/trick you into buying, so hands in closed position are also required to avoid people running up and sticking things in your hands. We found the Abu Simbel group much less aggressive, and consequently were able to do some souvenir shopping in relative peace – had the others been similar they would have gotten more business, methinks.
Then it was back on the bus for the journey back to Aswan, noting on the way the presence of a “mirage” in the sand – a realistic looking lake due to light reflection on hot flat sand.
A quick lunch then saw us with a free afternoon – I walked into town with one of the Belgian girls (quite a hike from our steerage in the sticks) and wandered through the bazaar. Today is apparently a national holiday celebrating the departure of the last Israeli soldier from the Sinai peninsula – so there were lots of people out and about. It never feels unsafe wandering around, though the constant “buy this, where are you from” can be very annoying. We ended up in an instrument shop where the owner, a musician, gave us a demo of some drums and tambourine like looking instruments, and turned out to speak not only Flemish but French and some German as well as English. He had travelled in cultural exchanges in a band all over the world and was a very interesting guy. Anna will return on Saturday evening with her Belgian traveling friend to have tea and purchase a small drum, and will have an interesting story to tell about its history. We stopped for tea on the way home and altogether have done 12,000 steps today according to Anna’s counter!
Dinner followed by packing and another day is over. The end is alarmingly near.
Memories of today: sand, glorious sand; huge imposing statues looking out from the temple; bad fish smells in the market; hot/humid in the afternoon; the hilarious New Zealand mother and daughter at dinner
