Egypte / Egypt 2002

July 4, 2002 – Aswan – Abu Simbel – Aswan

The wake up is pretty hard but we have to join the convoy at 4:00am. The night watchman is right on time to wake me up at 3:30. I take the breakfast with a Korean and David, an American who just arrived from Uganda after his debuts in South Africa. The breakfast is as usual, light: tea or coffee, 2 pieces of bread, jam, butter and a little piece of cheese.

Finally, at 4:00, the minibus stops in front of the hotel and we rapidly join the other travelers who will go to Abu Simbel. The day before I chose the long tour that includes for 45 EGP: the roundtrip to Abu Simbel in an air conditioning minibus, the high dam, Philae temple and the unachieved obelisk. The price of this excursion is nearly the same in any hotel. You can chose a tour without air conditioning (5 EGP off) or a short package with only Abu Simbel (40 EGP with A/C). These prices don’t include the entrance fees for the sites.

Our minibus driver goes from an hotel to another to fill the minibus. We will be 10 for the trip to Abu Simbel. The meeting point is set behind the Nubian Museum where we join the other buses and minibuses that will be part of the convoy (all in all approximatively 20 vehicles). The vehicles are checked before the departure. There is only one checkpoint to leave Aswan it just at the crossroads with the road to the airport. The convoy is not tourists buses full of soldiers or with many military vehicles, it only consists of 2 army vehicles one at the front position, the other at the rear!!!

On the road the drivers are playing a new version of Mad Max because they are overtaking each other all the time. They drive at around 120 km/h and they use the whole road for their show, they filter in only when trucks are coming on the other lane. It is 5am in the middle of the night and our driver is a very funny guy who makes jokes to one of his colleagues by switching off his lights just to disappear!! What a great joke!!

The pace of the convoy is quite high, the sunrise on the desert road is great but it is too hard to be awake at that time so I spend most of the time sleeping. Finally we arrive in Abu Simbel at 8am that leaves us 2 hours to fully appreciate the site because the convoy starts back at around 10am. The driver shows us the meeting point to avoid the crowd. There must be at least 250 persons there and it is hard to get the tickets because of the guides who buy many of them using small banknotes. But you have enough time to visit the site.

Great news, there is no camera ticket!! I follow the other tourists on the track that leads to the temple of Ramses II, ready for the shock to see one of the most beautiful monuments in the world. The monument is so great that it is really astonishing to be there. Not far from the temple of Ramses II, there is the temple of Hathor. The 2 temples were built in the 13^th century before Christ. The façade of Ramses II is 30m high and 35m wide. The temple of Hathor was built in the memory of Nefertari, the favorite spouse of Ramses II, its façade has 6 statues (10m high: 4 of Ramses II and 2 of Nefertari).

Temple of Ramses II

Temple of Hathor

The temples of Abu Simbel were jeopardized by the cration of the High Dam decided by Nasser. An international campaign to save them was directed by the UNESCO. This operation took place between 1963 and 1968. Moving the 2 temples was a very risky operation and needed technical genius but they succeeded to move the temples on a higher position (60m above). They cut the temples into 1036 blocks and some of them weighted more than 30 tons. The new place is strictly identical to the former one. Each of the temples is protected by a concrete structure, hidden under artificial hills. What really impressive is the fact that you can’t see that they move the temple. Great job guys!!

The inside of the temples are very beautiful, with a special distinction to the ones inside Ramses temple, which show very well preserved inscriptions and 10m high statues of Ramses II.

For a nice view of the temple without any tourist, you just have to wait til the end and just before 10am you will be alone with the monuments that is what we did with a couple of italians.

The trip to come back to Aswan is a very long one because I don’t feel the need to sleep and the road is very monotonous. The drivers are calm now and they drive like normal ones, as usual in Egypt!!!