trip to Abu Simbel and Aswan

Whew! What a trip! I registered for fall semester Friday morning at 2:30am and then went to the gate with my friend to wait for the bus to take us to the airport at 2:45am. From there we took a short plane ride to Aswan. From there we took a 4 hour bus ride to Abu Simbel. These towns are in southern Egypt (also called Upper Egypt) and Abu Simbel is extremely close to the Sudan border. Here we boarded our cruise ship and settled into our cabins before touring the temples of Abu Simbel in the afternoon. The next morning the ship sailed north toward Aswan.

All the temples we saw (there were a lot) had been 'moved' from somewhere else along the Nile because a dam was built and so the temples would have been flooded. All were pharaonic and outstanding. The detail in the carvings, the hieroglyphs, and the art was awesome. After some time my photos all started to look alike. I'm having a hard time differentiating the insides of all the temples. Different pharaohs were portrayed and I saw a lot of images of gods and goddesses. Beautiful.

The cruise part was nice. We sailed through Lake Nasser, this huge lake between Abu Simbel and Aswan and flows into the Nile. Our bathrooms were larger than I anticipated. There was a pool on the roof of the ship. The food was almost always buffet style and they were very accommodating to the vegetarians (there were three of us). The sunsets were amazing every single time. We even had an hour in the day devoted to "tea time" with cake and crepes. It was hot out but the sunshine and breeze was pleasant. The last day in Aswan at the temple of Kalabsha was the worst as far as heat. My camera was dead by that point but that helped me to experience it without it being through the screen of my digital camera. It's really something how they can move entire temples like they did. And most were done 40 years ago! It's also amazing how the art is so well preserved and ancient. I took one day off of classes for this trip and now it's back to reality! It was so relaxing and luxurious, but now I have homework. I love you!