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Aungela and I had to get up at the crack of dawn on Wednesday morning in order to be driven out to the Cairo Airport by 6 a.m. and make our 7:30 a.m. flight down to the Upper (southern) Egyptian city of Aswan for the beginning of our 4 day Nile Cruise later that afternoon. Aungela and I sat it the backseat of our little blue Mazda rice-rocket as our nameless tour driver flew threw the empty streets of early morning Cairo. As we raced through red lights at intersection after intersection and over rickety old elevated highways with nothing but flimsy railings to "protect" us from flying off the edge at a million miles an hour in the event of an accident, the both of us just looked at one another tight lipped and hoped that death would not be in our cards for the day. Al-hamdu l-illah (All thanks be to God) we didn't crash, didn't die, and actually boarded our Egyptian Airlines flight without incident. As we were bussed out to the plane and shuttled up a long flight of external airplane stairs guarded by armed security officers, I felt like a movie star peering out through my sunglasses over the tarmac as Aungela and I walked arm-in-arm up the steps and into our flying coach. "Good-bye and good riddens Cairo!" I felt like screaming into the desert air as I turned to take one last long look back toward the great African megalopolis. But as I looked closer, I realized that no-one was paying any attention to me, so instead howling out my true feelings about Cairo I turned back around, ducked as to avoid hitting my head on the doorway of the plane, and seated myself in the back of the plane right beside Aungela.
"Let's just hope I don't need to find out the answer," I thought as I put up my tray and prepared for departure. Fortunately we did land bidoon mushkilla (without problem) at the small Aswan Airport sometime around 9:30 a.m. and were promptly greeted by our new tourguide Osama, a fun-spirited middle-aged Egyptian man who studied English, history, and hieroglyphs at university some years back and has been working as a tourguide with foreigners like us ever since.
Above: although this picture was taken at the end of our cruise, I shall put it up here on this page so you can see the staring cast of these final pages of the Egypt Tour 2001 website. On the far left, yours truly - Aungela and me - hailing from the great western state of California; standing to the right of me are Vanina (pronounced Banina) and Diego from Argentina; to the right of them are the Alvarez girls from Venezuela who now live and study in Switzerland (their mother Ana Maria had to take care of something in her room while we were taking this picture so she wasn't able to be in it); and sitting in front of them and standing on the right is the Thomas family coming to Egypt from Quebec, Canada. Between the 11 of us we spoke six languages, so we were guaranteed to understand each other in at least one language, and generally stuck to switching back and forth from Spanish to English to French which was a lot of fun!
We all introduced ourselves in the lobby of The Nile Dream and then met up again with Osama who took us back to our little shuttle van that drove us out to a lakeside boat launching ramp where we hopped on a covered little blue motorized dinghy that took us out to the Temple of Philae which now rests above a small island in the middle of Lake Nasser.
Above: pillars and hieroglyphs of the Temple of Isis at Philae. The following is a little blurb on Philae from my All of Egypt: English Edition book, Copyright 2000, Casa Editrice Bonechi. |
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Philae In the midst of an evocative panorama of granitic rocks, the columns and pillars of this island sacred to the goddess of Isis rise up towards a cloudless sky, creating the impression that one is in one of those landscapes which exist only in the imagination. The temple of Philae has one of the three best preserved Ptolemaic temples, the other two being those of Edfu and Dendera. Following the construction of the old dam on the first cataract in 1904, the temple found itself underwater for the greater part of the year and it was only during August that it was visitable because it was only during this period that all the sluice gates were open in order to relieve the pressure due to the flooding of the Nile. After the construction of the big dam at Aswan it became necessary in order to save the temple, to dismantle it, move it to the island of Egelika, 150 meters to the north, and then put it up again. The cult of Isis at Philae goes back a very long way and there was a tradition that at lease once in his life every Egyptian should go on a pilgrimage to the sacred island. Philae is the smallest of the three islands at the end of the group of rocks which form the first cataract and it is about 400 meters long and 135 meters wide. The southern part of the island is occupied by the complex of monuments which form the sanctuary dedicated to the goddess. It was maintained that the miraculous and beneficial flooding of the Nile each year had its origin there. After Justinian completed the task of evangelizing Nubia, the bishop Teodorus in 535 A.D. converted the temple into a church dedicated to St. Stephen. The southern extremity of the island is occupied by the pavilion of Nectanebo I, a building with fourteen Hathoric columns. This same Pharoah initiated the construction of the first pylon of the the temple of Isis which is decorated at the bottom with the famous scene in which the pharaoh Ptolemy XIII is offering prisoners of war as a sacrifice to Hator and Horus. |
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Below: view of the columns leading up to the first pylon of the temple.
Above: bas-reliefs on the first pylon entering into the Temple of Isis. As you can see in the left image, most of the smaller imagery of human figures had been destroyed by centuries of occupying Christians opposed to idolatry.
Above: a view of several beautiful columns with hieroglyphs at the Temple of Isis.
Above right: more historical defacing in the name of monotheism.
Above and below right: interesting illuminated hieroglyphic inscriptions inside the Temple of Isis whose interior would be nearly nearly pitch black without the additional electric lighting for tourists.
Above left: random corner in a chamber of the temple with interesting nearly-invisible hieroglyphs. Originally the walls should have been painted with bright, vibrant colors.
I didn't want to use my flash for any of the interior shots, although technically I imagine it wouldn't do that much damage to the stone itself since the original colors of the hieroglyphs had been washed washed or weathered away ages ago, so the picture of me above left is a bit blurry. In any case, I think the picture is interesting because there I am just posing in some ancient Egyptian temple all, "tra la la. . . look at me, I'm a tourist in Egypt. . ." when in fact several thousands of years ago this very same building was a secret monument to one of the ancient Egyptian gods and I most likely would never have even been let inside to see this sacred room. 'Tis interesting how things change, eh? After getting my picture taken, I turned around and walked into the little chamber behind me and moseyed around looking at the hieroglyphs on the wall and thinking, "Man, this is really wild," as I tried to make out the shapes of the writing. I snapped the picture top-above-left (ie, atop the above two pictures) and continued to peruse along the walls. Then from above me I heard this chirpy high-pitched squeaking sound and looked up to see a family of BATS hanging from the ceiling over my head! "This is cool!" I thought to myself as I moved in up close for a picture. Although the bats couldn't see me per se I'm sure they could sense me coming in for the shot using their sonar. (I wonder what a sonar image looks like as interpreted by the brain?!?) So I slowly tiptoed up under the bats, raised my camera slightly and centered them in my field of focus then FLASH! "Got 'em!" I thought to myself victoriously. Well, apparently those bats had some sort of flash-recognizing mechanism in those blind eye-lets of theirs because just as I flashed, their little claws disengaged from the ceiling and they SWOOPED down toward me and started flapping their web-like wings flying in formation around my head! "AAAAAAAAACK!!!!" I hollered then ducked and bolted out of the room like nobody's business! The tour group, which was standing back in the main hallway where I had taken my tourist-shot picture just moments before, looked at me inquisitively and were all, "????????" so I yelled "BATS!!!!" and smiled and grabbed my head to make sure there were no bats on my hat! Our tour guide Osama just chucked and said, "Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you there might be bats in here." Well thanks a lot for the info! :-)
Above: one of the few carvings found anywhere in Egypt of the God of Fun. He looks like a wild little trickster, eh! (All of us in the tourgroup were interested in the fact that the God of Fun's appearance seemed so atypical and cartoonish compared to virtually all other types of ancient Egyptian imagery.)
Above: an ancient Greek inscription on one of the walls in the Temple of Isis saying something along the lines of "Yes, we were here."
Above: view of the tour group and the back side of the Temple of Isis at Philae taken as I meandered around the island.
Above: our dinghy driver as we sailed away from the Temple of Isis and headed back toward land. While on the boat a local Egyptian man walked around selling little wooden trinkets and souvenirs so I picked one up for 15 pounds ($3) and now it hangs on my bedroom wall in Saudi Arabia.
Above: quite possibly my favorite shot from our trip to Egypt - Aungela's million dollar smile and my puckered lips as we boat back toward Aswan across Lake Nasser in the dinghy from Philae.
Once back on land we crammed into our little shuttle van, voted to skip the visit to the Aswan Damn since a) it was blazing hot outside, b) the damn was 20km (13 miles) away, and c) because we figured it would be nicer not to rush all around Aswan and instead give everyone more time to wander through the tourists markets here and there. I was personally pleased with this decision since I was suddenly beginning to feel a little queasy for some strange reason and the sore throat I began feeling while in the Oasis Hotel the night before started getting worse by the minute. Before we returned to The Nile Dream we made a quick stop at the above site - the old Granite Quarries. According to my little All About Egypt: English Edition book:
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Granite Quarries The old granite quarries about two kilometers from the city stretch along the Nile for about six kilometers. From the grooves which have been cut in a regular manner into the syenite walls we can get some idea of how the blocks of granite were removed. Wedges of wood were inserted into these grooves, which indicated the surface to be cut out, and then moistened. The expansion of the wood caused the stone to split along the desired directions and in this way fairly smooth surfaces were obtained which were ready for polishing. Nearby can be seen the famous "unfinished obelisk" which would have been about 41 meters (yards) high with a weight of about 1,276 tonnes. It was to have been erected for Queen Hatshepsut but fissures developed in several points and it was never removed from the rock. |
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To tell you the truth, I felt a bit stupid while at the granite quarry because when we got out of the van I didn't quite hear the explanation as to why we were there - perhaps because I was starting to seriously space out as my internal health rapidly began to deteriorate - so I had no real clue what was going on. I stepped out of the van and walked around in a bit of a daze baking in the hot afternoon sun and climbed up and over the rock pathway of the quarry, looked around as sweat beaded up on my forehead and thought to myself, "This is the lamest, most insignificant and uninteresting place I have ever seen in my entire life! We drove all the way out here for this? And for what?!? I see nothing here but a pink stone hill with a wooden walkway zig-zagging all over it. What a joke!" Then, as I shuffled over the rises and falls of the rock I nearly fell into a big pit gaping open right in front of me and thought, "Oh my. A gaping pit with a giant unfinished obelisk in it. This is interesting." SNAP! Photo taken. Then I walked back to the van under the burning sun, jumped in and slouched over in my seat and took a little rest as the van rolled through Aswan back to The Nile Dream where I was looking forward to lying my head down on my bed and doing a little dreaming of my own. Once we finally returned to the ship I went straight up to our cabin, closed the curtains and slept right through dinner. The ship pulled out of port around 4 p.m. and I was asleep for the disembarkment. Aungela ended up wandering around the ship for the whole time and sitting up on the covered exterior deck enjoying the view of the Nile as it carried us north toward Lower Egypt.
Our first stop after we set sail down the Nile was the small city of Kom Ombo where we arrived sometime around 8 p.m. Aungela came into the room and nicely informed me that we had arrived and that the group was going to walk up the the temple located about 200 meters (yards) ashore and that if I'd like to go they'd all be leaving in about 15 minutes. Now, as anyone who knows me knows, I can be a real grumpy-pants when I first wake up and especially when I'm not feeling well, so I grumbled back and forth twisting and rolling on the bed mumbling, "God, I feel like hell right now! I really don't feel like going out tonight." Then I began to waver, "But I came all the way out to southern Egypt to see all these places and it would be a total waste of my time and money if I didn't go, so, argh, I guess I'll go. Grrrrrr." Poor Aungela. She had to sit there and listen to me the whole time while I wasn't in the chippiest of moods and I would dare say I was actually being a bit snippy toward her, which certainly wasn't her responsibility to put up with. But Aungela is a really patient person and has great self-control so she just said nicely, "C'mon, you can get up for a few minutes and come out with us. It'll only be a little while and we'll be back before too long." "Grrrr. . . OK." I said as I rumbled around with the sheets pulled over my head. "Alright alright. . . I'll get out of bed." So I pulled myself up, brushed my teeth, threw some water on my face and walked down to the lobby where we all walked ashore together and trotted up to the Temple of Kom Ombo.
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Kom Ombo Situated between Edfu and Aswan, Kom Ombo is the ancient city of Pa-Sebek, that is the "home of Sebek" the crocodile god who was already worshipped in predynastic times. In Kom Ombo is to be found the impressive remains of a temple of somewhat unusual style. In fact it is a double temple obtained by joining two temples along one side. The right-hand temple is the one consecrated to the god Sebek, the god of fertility who is also believed to be the creator of the world, while the left-hand temple is dedicated to the god Haroeris, that is "Horus the Great" the solar god of war. This temple was also rebuilt by the Ptolemies who adapted a temple built at the time of Tutmose III. The two temples were surrounded by a large outer wall which opened into the Nile via two gateways. In the hypostyle hall there are three rows of columns, one which runs down the center dividing it into two separate sanctuaries in a rather original manner. Then come the sanctuaries clearly separated by a space. |
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Top-above, top and below: the four sole pictures I took of Kom Ombo.
By this time I was feeling seriously ill and staggered around the complex alone, having split off from the tourgroup and lagging behind. You know when you get sick to your core and you break out into a sweat and feel like collapsing to your knees and croaking? Well, that was me. I knelt down on the ground and slumped up against a wall of the temple and tried looking for Aungela to tell her that I would be returning to the boat imediately and that I was on the verge of internal self-destruction. I found Aungela, told her I was "outta here" and walked the 200 meters back to The Nile Dream which actually felt more like trekking 200 miles through hell than it did 300 steps back to a luxury cruise ship. So once I got back to the dock I stumbled over the plank into the ship, hobbled up the stairs to the 3rd floor, flung open the cabin door and crashed straight into bed thinking wearily to myself, "Man, I feel like death warmed over," and instantly fell asleep.
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18
April 2001 - Day 6 - Aswan and Philae
The
flight was quite smooth, although I was a little unimpressed by the
total lack of legroom in this particular plane which appeared to have
been built at the dawn of mechanized air travel. Also, the entire
time we were in the air I couldn't help but have flashbacks of news
stories about that Egypt Airlines mid-air disaster several years ago
where the pilot allegedly committed suicide by plunging the plane
straight into the Atlantic Ocean. "Hmm. I wonder if Egypt Air
subjects their pilots to psychological testing these days?" I
pondered suspiciously as I looked up toward the cockpit of the airplane.
After
grabbing our two small suitcases we jumped into a small shuttle bus
and were driven through the hilly desert city of Aswan (which is more
like a big town actually) and were soon delivered to our cruise ship The
Nile Dream. "Let's just hope this ship doesn't earn the
name The Nile Nightmare while we're on board." I thought
to myself as we walked aboard and checked in at the front desk. From
afar the ship wasn't much of a looker, but once we got inside and saw
the nice wood interior and comfy accommodations, Aungela and I were
rather impressed! After checking in we took a quick gander around The
Nile Dream a found that it had three levels of guest rooms, a
dining room on the 3rd floor, an interior bar and shaded exterior
deck on the 4th, and a sundeck with mini-pool on the 5th level.
"Ritzy! Look at us!" we said to each other giddily as we
stood looking out at the Nile. We didn't have much time to admire the
sheer coolness of being atop a cruiseship in the Nile or having the
North African winds buffet our faces in the hot Egyptian sun because
we had to meet Osama and the rest of our 11-person tourgroup at 10:30
a.m. for our drive and boat ride out to the Temple of Philae at 11.
