Day6

Day 6 Abu Simble

Again Mickey Mouse didn't let me down this morning, his big hand was pointing to the 12 and his little one to the three and his mouth was sending out the alarm call. "Come on Vin, time to get up, you nutter!"
Let's be honest you must be a little bit mad when your getting up at 3.a.m and your on holiday.
What did Mickey care he had been swinging his arms around for days without complaining, the least I could do was answer his call by dragging myself out of bed.

Again there was no bloody hot water as I took the plunge and got under the shower still half asleep. I was soon wide awake though as I danced around like I was treading on hot coals trying to avoid the stream of water that was doing it's best to cleanse me, if only I would let it!
At ten to four I crept down the stairs to wait in the lobby for my pick up. The night porter was sound sleep on one of the couches in the corner, the lucky bugger was getting paid to be asleep and I had paid to be wide awake at this time of the night/morning! That old saying of the early bird catching the worm is not all it's cracked up to be I thought.
I stood around waiting as quietly as possible for the minibus until it finally arrived at four thirty, which really pissed me off, knowing I could have had another half hour in the pit!
This was not a good sign, I was the last person to be picked up after the minibus had been to some other hotels, and of course there was only one seat left, this was the little fold down one along the side, which came down after everyone else had squeezed past into the larger seats behind.

I climbed aboard and wished everyone good morning; I had a few grunted replies from those with enough energy to muster them to say anything.

The bus stopped after a couple of minutes just at the junction to the main highway, we were in a queue of about thirty minibuses and larger coaches. This was the staging post where all the buses heading for Abu Simble had to meet up before heading off on the 280 km journey through the desert. We were to travel in convoy and be escorted by armed police vehicles. This sort of frightening realism is hard to deal with so early in the morning, especially now that we had got out of the minibus and were standing around in the freezing cold. All right, maybe it wasn't that cold, but it was certainly cold enough to be wearing a jumper or sweatshirt, and I didn't have either!

After about ten minutes all the buses were in line and ready to go, the driver called for everyone to get back on our minibus and we were off.   On the road out of Aswan we crossed over the original Aswan dam, which has now been superseded by the High dam.
They call it a convoy and you imagine being stuck behind the bus in front you for mile after mile, while in reality nothing could be further from the truth. As soon as this convoy hit the main highway it was everyman for themselves. I'm sure the drivers raced each other all the way just to relieve the boredom, there was no apparent structure in the convoy whatsoever, simply foot down and drive as hard as you can.
The only time our driver slowed was when we had to go through one of the many road block check points along the way, all of them being manned by bored looking policemen and soldiers, who no doubt would rather have been doing something better than waving at busloads of tourists.

I wished I had brought a sweatshirt, not because it was cold in the bus, I just needed something to rest my head on up against the window. Looking round the bus there was a bit of a mixture with the people on board.
A German couple occupied the two seats up front, two French lads were in front of me, and I was sat in a row of three with two rather large English public school type girls. This didn't help me being the one on the little seat, because the girl next to me kept spilling over her excess weight onto me as she dozed!
Behind me were three French Canadians and another man who never said a word on the whole trip, so god knows where he was from.

I don't usually mind Americans or Canadians with their sometimes grating accents, but just now and then they can get a little boring to listen to, especially when you have no choice, as was the case with me this morning.
The two Canadian girls and one guy were sat just one foot behind me, and when these people talk they can be a little on the loud side at the best of times. I was trying to keep the lump of a girl on my left from squashing me to death against the window, while trying to sleep myself, with the added bonus of a three-way conversation ringing in my ears at about a thousand decibels.
One of the topics of conversation I most remember was when the guy had said something about a cake he had eaten recently.
"Oh really, did it have almonds and sugar" said one of the girls.
"Was it real cream or whipped," said the other.
" Did it taste as good as the ones you get at wherever it was".
"Was it expensive".
And so it went on for about five minutes. For fu*k sake! Who really cares it was only a cake, and I was trying to get some sleep!
Now if I had been having that conversation it would have went something like this!
Canadian guy: "I had a nice cake last night"
Me: "Great!"
You see there really is no need to use three thousand words in a conversation when just eight will do!

The sun came up bringing with it some much needed light, I couldn't sleep for a couple of reasons and I imagine my face was beginning to resemble a prune squashed up against the window. I couldn't even see anything as I looked out of the window, because it was so dark.
Somewhere along the desert highway under the dark night sky we crossed the imaginary line, known as the Tropic of Cancer. You can't see it, so it doesn't really matter and I suppose it's not that significant anyway, well not to me at least.
Yes, I know there is not much to see anyway when you look out into the desert, but that was as good as it got being that's all there was to look at either side of the seemingly endless highway.
And then again anything had to be better than listening to a never-ending conversation about a poxy cream cake, which was now into it's second hour!

The minibus pulled into Abu Simble at around 7.30 a.m., not bad going by anybody's standards. The guide informed us that we would have two hours here and we were to be back on the bus for 9.30.
So here I was at the furthest point in which this trip was to take me, just less than 40 km from the Sudanese border, where one of the greatest monuments to Pharonic Egypt still stood to this day.

It's not much of a town, Abu Simble is like a small hamlet in the desert with just a few little houses, some mid range hotels a scattering tacky souvenir shops and not much else. What it does have and is world famous for, are the colossal temples of Rameses the second and that of the Pharonic Goddess Hathor. These two temples, carved into the rock face on the West Bank of the Nile are a testament to the almighty power the former rulers of Egypt had. These rock carvings and inner temple halls are immense in stature and would have taken hundreds, maybe thousands of highly skilled work men nearly thirty years to complete.
Both were lost to the ever shifting desert sands over the course of time, and would have been lost forever had they not been rediscovered by the Swiss explorer Jean-Louis Burkhardt in 1813 when he found one of the heads sticking out of the sand, the rest as they say is history.
And so it was that after some major archaeological excavation work the temples were again to stand out proudly, watching over the Nile as they had originally been intended to do.

With of all the tourists arriving at the same time each day it can take a little while to purchase a ticket, pass through the double security and actually get to the temple site. And of course this many tourists milling around together can actually spoil the scene a little, as everyone jockeys for the best vantage positions when taking photographs, both inside and out.
I felt that had I been able to arrive here a little later in the day I would have had the place to myself, instead I was having to share it with the other couple of thousand who had journeyed down here in the bus convoy. It would have been a much more enjoyable experience with fewer people around, and also knowing that there was only two hours to look at the site meant rushing around trying to take it all in. If there were not so many people, then two hours would be ample time, but having to follow large tour groups with guides explaining everything to the uninterested inside the temples can slow you down.

After passing through the entrance you walk up a slight incline on a sandy path, we are on a bend as such in the river, to either side all you can see is sand and the Nile. At the top of the incline you swing around to the left following the natural bend and drop down again to be greeted by more sand and a large open expanse that is now already full of tourists.   All of these people are looking up at the rock face, which I could not see clearly from where I was as it was still a little way down the small incline and slightly around to the left. I dropped down off the pathway and got my first sight of the Temples, which can only be described as very impressive, especially when you consider how long ago they were created.
The morning sun was bright streaming through the azure blue sky with very few clouds to be seen anywhere. The temples stood out as the sun gave the sandstone a surreal golden glow, and from the distance I was at they looked as though they could have been built yesterday.

The first of these two temples, that of Rameses the second was constructed between 1274 and 1244 BC. This temple is fronted by four giant statues of Rameses himself, which were not only carved as a homage to him, but were also intended to warn any would be aggressors sailing up the Nile into the Pharonic rulers land just how powerful and mighty he was.
Inside of this first temple that stretches back some forty metres into the rock face was a great hypostyle court, a further pillared hall, and right at the end was the sacred sanctuary for the four Gods this temple had been dedicated to. Four statues of the Gods could be found here, these four Gods were Ra-Harakhty, Amun, Ptha and lastly Rameses, who himself believed that he was a God in his own right, and so wanted to be depicted as such in the company of other Gods.
Paintings depicting scenes relating to Rameses and events from this age adorn the inner temple walls along with Hieroglyphs, the earliest known form of recorded script dating back as far as 3250 BC. It is from these scripts that Egyptologists have been able to piece together the history of the great Pharonic Egypt, and furthermore date events to within reasonably accurate timescales.

The second of the two temples cut into the same rock face is that of Hathor, the Goddess of love and power who gets second billing again to Rameses. The outside of this temple is fronted by six large statues, four of which depict Rameses and the other two are of Queen Nefertari his most favoured wife, of which he had many.
Flanking the six main statues are some smaller ones of the selected princes and princesses from Rameses' unions with his various wives.
Again the inside of this temple is set out in the standard layout similar to that of Rameses, but with the pillars of the hypostyle hall being crowned with the Nefertari capitals. There are many wall paintings and hieroglyphs depicting the Queen Nefertari, and many more of Rameses himself shown as a great warrior, lover and leader. A lot of the walls were lit with subdued lighting and covered with a Perspex glass, this to stop people from touching the artwork, and leaving their own artwork in the form of graffiti.
While I can admire the craftsmanship that obviously went into the building and decoration of these tombs, I find it a little harder to appreciate some of finer details involved. A lot of the artwork seems to be very repetitive, and I would guess that only true Egyptologists could pick out the significance of the minor differences in two characters painted on a wall, that to me seems identical. All that said and done I did enjoy this visit and feel that it was worth having to suffer the early start, and cream cake horror story.

The two hours passed by very quickly and I soon found myself standing beside the minibus waiting for our group to gather, before setting off again in convoy back across the Eastern Arabian Desert towards Aswan.
As we stood around waiting to depart I got talking to one of the cream cake girls from Canada. It turned out that they were not on a holiday as such, but were in fact members of a Canadian Christian church movement who were doing some missionary work in Cairo with the Coptic Christian church of Egypt.
They were taking a little time out to see the sights of Egypt before returning home to their native Canada.

The journey back was uneventful enough with the same kind of frantic Wacky racers escapades taking place amongst the various buses, all jockeying for pole position along the route.
The big girl next to me decided she would share her load with me again as she had another sleep.
I was being crushed against the window again, but at least I was now able to see a lot more, but there was nothing of any great interest to see. There was just the occasional little settlement here and there, most just off the only road in this harsh and barren looking region, it was just sand and rock and more sand.
The Tropic of Cancer was once again crossed somewhere along this highway, but don't ask me where as it wasn't signposted, at least not as far as I could see, which surprised me as I thought it might have been marked out somewhere if only for the tourist interest.
I don't suppose a group of nomadic Bedouins leading a camel train across the desert would really give a shit where an imaginary line is supposed to be.

We were heading for the newer Aswan High Dam, where we stopped for a short while to take in the views from this monumental construction. This High dam was built to supplement the original Aswan dam in the production of hydro electricity, and is situated a further 6 km upstream. Apparently the building of this dam enabled the doubling of electric output for the whole of Egypt.
You could hardly call the visitor centre here a proper visitor's centre, there was some Information relating to its construction on one display board outside of a little ice cream booth, and that was it!
For the average layman like me this was plenty enough information, but definitely not enough to warrant being called a visitor centre.
I suppose it was worth looking purely for the sake of just seeing it, but it was a little like looking at any other major dam, a big lump of concrete put up across a river harnessing it's energy and blocking the natural flow.

No one on our bus was that keen to hang about here for too long, a few quick pics and a cold drink was all   we had time for, and it was enough. Next stop on the excursion was the Temple of Philae.
Originally this temple stood on the sacred island of Isis, the sun Goddess who was one of Egypt's greatest worshipped Gods. The temple site was a major tourist destination in the 19th century; it is now situated some 20 km from there at its present location on Agilkia Island.
When the old Aswan dam was first created this caused the original site at Isis Island to be submerged under water for approx six months of the year and it was feared the site could be lost for ever without some kind of intervention. This came in the form of UNESCO who funded the cost of this major undertaking.
In the early 60's with the construction of the new high dam and the expected further rising water levels meant moving this complex stone by stone to Agilkia Island, where it was reconstructed faithfully.

To get to the temple meant having to use a small ferryboat, which is where the sting in the tail comes! You first buy your entrance ticket for twenty pounds on the riverbank, and then you have to negotiate a price with one of the many ferry boys to take you over to the island.
Our group negotiated a price of twenty pounds working out at two pounds fifty piastres each, which is the official rate according to the guide book, but I dare say had I been on my own it would have meant paying a good deal more.
Crossing the Nile you can see the temple in all it's splendour, resembling somewhat the ancient Greek and Roman architecture we all know. I suppose the Romans who were here for some time had a lot to do with the way it looks now. The temple was originally constructed somewhere around 350 BC and was still being added to by Christians around 550 AD.
Once off the ferry and up a flight of steps straight ahead you pass a large temple on your right, then enter directly into a large courtyard that reminded me very much of a scene from Roman days.
The courtyard is laid out with a row of pillars down each side leading to some steps that further leads up to the gate of Ptolemy. Through here you enter the inner complex that consisted of various chambers and smaller temples.
Roaming around the small island I was reminded of the Acropolis in Greece, what with the many pillars and broken stone statues and monuments lying around.

My thought's here were that this was a very pleasant place to walk around, without anybody hassling you, no tacky kiosks or souvenir sellers. And to top it all, there was a bonus with the sky a cloudless deep blue and the sun was shining on the stonework in a most favourable light. Great for photography, it's just a shame I couldn't do it justice.
One more thing I noticed while walking around the island was just how many Russian tourists' there were here! Probably something to do with the two countries being friendly ever since the Russians stepped in to finance and provide the lacking expertise in the building of the high dam.
Originally the World banks, America and Britain were to provide the funding and expertise, but pulled out for whatever reason. This at the time upset the Egyptian Prime Minister Nasser, who in turn retaliated by nationalising the Suez Canal, which then led to the Suez crisis of the late 50's and the subsequent invasion of the Suez by the British, French and Israeli's.

We made one more stop on the journey back, this time it was to see the unfinished obelisk situated at the Northern quarry about one and a half kilometres outside of Aswan. This area was the main provider of quarried rock for a lot of the Pharonic building. This obelisk, had it been finished would have been not only the largest, but also the heaviest one ever made from one single piece of rock. It's weight is estimated at 1168 tonnes and measures 42 metres, but unfortunately a flaw appeared in the rock after the stone masons had worked long and hard, thus to this day it still lies where they left it abandoned all those centuries ago. It is not known where it would have been erected had it have been completed, and God knows how they were going to lift and transport it.

Having seen enough for one day and I must admit I was feeling a little templed out, I was glad to get back to my hotel around 3.45 pm. I noticed the left foot of my newish boots that I've only had for about five years, but very rarely worn had split, and I only had a pair of sandals apart from them. I convinced myself they were not that bad, but knew they would only get worse the more I wore them, and just to make it a little worse the right one looked as thought it might soon follow. Still all I could do was wear them as long as I could. Knowing I would have to buy a new pair if the worse came to the worse.
I'm sure I detected a small burst of warm water as I stood under the shower, or maybe I'd just been out in the sun too long today! I still had time to try for some more sunset pictures along the Nile, so after freshening up I strolled down the road to take a walk along the river front, I could have been dancing in tune with my left boot making a slight flapping noise with every other step I took.
As it turned out the sunset this evening was better, but still not quite what I wanted.

A young man who was selling English and French language newspapers approached me, but it was not only the printed news he was offering me. "Hash, you want hash? You want Nubian banana?" he inquired.
" No thank you!"
"What you want then?" was his next remark.
"I just told you, I don't want anything," I said.
" I think you looking for nice Nubian banana," he said, looking at me kind of accusingly.

What the bloody hell was Nubian banana? I was thinking, then the penny dropped in, or at least I think it did. It was a phallic reference, and he was offering me gay sex! I felt quite embarrassed and slightly angry with this young lad standing there laughing at me.

Did I look as though I was cruising; I think that's the proper gay term to use when looking to pick up.
Was it the way I was walking, or the way I was dressed, what was it that made him think I was that way inclined? Worse still he might he have been making some reference to me being some kind paedophile! Whatever he thought, I was definitely not looking for anything he had to offer, not even a newspaper!

It was still a little early to eat, and I was kind of half observing Ramadan by waiting until it got dark before going to dine, if only because It can be a little off putting when you are the only person eating in a restaurant.
Away from the river front I cut into the souks making my way along the alleyways until I came to Jimmy the tailors shop, where I again stopped and had a chat and some tea with this most congenial man.

Shopkeepers and street vendors alike all over the world are all very quick to pick up on your nationality; they try anything to lure you into a sale. When you hear them say things like "Alright mate, Lovely jubbly, nice Asda price" you do laugh, not because the words are funny, more the way it is pronounced. I met one shopkeeper this evening who had been to England and thought Asda's supermarket was the best shop in the world! Obviously he had never been to Tesco's!
I did a bit of souvenir shopping, just nick knacks more than anything else, little things that would be a reminder of my time here.

I chose a different restaurant this evening; it was situated in the heart of the souks and looked to be clean enough to give it a go. It was a bad choice, the meat tasted like I don't know what, it was called lamb but was probably camel, and tasted like shit. Needless to say I didn't eat much here and left virtually everything on the plate.
My new friend with the bad eyesight, who owned the bakery and was desperately looking for an English woman, was again taking in the night air sitting outside his bakery shop smoking on his sheesha pipe when I passed by on my way to the station. I stopped for a little chat, but as graciously as I could declined the offer of tea and a smoke on his pipe.
I bought some biscuits and water for the next days breakfast on the train, and also a couple of pastries to stave off the current hunger, which I ate as I walked to the station.
The two little scamsters were still at it, trying it on this time with a middle-aged tourist couple that were having none of it, probably a lot wiser to this scam than I was.
Sixteen Egyptian pounds was the minimal cost of a second-class ticket from Aswan to Luxor, which was to be my next destination. I booked a seat on the 6 a.m. service for the following morning, as this would give me a full day, with the train being scheduled to arrive in Luxor just after 8.a.m.

On my way back to the hotel I bought a carton of Marlboro cigarettes from a small shop near the station. The young boy behind the counter started out by asking for some ridiculous sum, but finally settled for eleven U S dollars, which was a great deal for him and not so good for me, as they turned out to be totally unsmokeable, They were more than likely made from compacted camel sh*t, and must surely have been counterfeit.   If I ever go back to Aswan I'm going to have a little word with that young man!

Back at the Rosewana hotel Walid was again waiting for me; it was only just after eight and so a little too early for bed. I sat around in the lounge drinking tea and correcting Walid's English.
Mr Farouk again saved the day for me when he appeared at 10 p.m. I asked that the night porter should give me a call at 5.a.m and settled up my bill. Walid seemed genuinely disappointed that I was leaving, but like I said to him' I had seen and done all I wanted to in Aswan and needed to get to Luxor.
I only had a few days left and there were still quite a few things to see and do on my travel plans.
I never bothered with the bug spray tonight, I just read up on a little info for the next day, set Mickey for 4.45 a.m. and fell off to sleep instantly. Twenty minutes into my sleep there was a banging on the door, it was Walid. Unaware or unconcerned that he had woken me, he handed over a piece of paper with his name and address on it, he asked if I could write to him from England. I think he wants a pen pal!