Hello Everyone,
Our last stop in Egypt was Aswan, about 140 miles south, up the Nile, by private car. It was a delightful drive through irrigated farmland growing lots of bananas and mangos (among other things) and numerous small towns. It took almost 6 hours of driving to travel that distance because we had to constantly slow down to bounce over 10,000 speed bumps (a “slight” exaggeration) along the way. They use speed bumps throughout Egypt to slow traffic down because no one ever obeys the speed limits. However, this method does work very well. There were also numerous police checkpoints. We actually had to get a permit and register our passports to travel this route.
In Aswan we stayed in a guesthouse on Elephantine island in the middle of the Nile, owned by a Nubian (black African) family. The entire island houses an ancient Nubian village. The village has about 2000 residents, all of them members of just two extended families. Strangely, at the far end of the island, there is a 5 star hotel that was originally built to house workers on the high dam in the 60’s and 70’s and later converted to this hotel. The Nubian people who own the island, allowed the building of the original structure to support the dam project, but never intended it to be converted into a hotel. That came later through various political maneuvers. But, a 5 star hotel on the island opened up a lot of possibilities for eating and relaxing. All the major hotels in Egypt have metal detectors and security at the entrances, but, as it turned out, if you were living on the island, there was a secret entrance through an unlocked gate at the end of a dirt path. We were able to sneak onto the hotel grounds whenever we wanted.
The “high dam” on the Nile, built by the Russians under Egyptian President Nasser, between 1960 and 1970 was built to supplement the old low dam built in 1902. Before the dams were built the Nile would flood all the way down to the Mediterranean every year in the winter. Now, the dams manage the water to prevent flooding as well as provide power and irrigation water for growing crops in the desert. The Nile is the source of all life in the area. Travel just a few miles away from it and the landscape turns into a harsh lifeless desert as far as you can see. The dams create a calm, lake like, river just downstream at Aswan. There is a lot of boating activity as a result. The high dam has created the largest man made lake in the world right in the middle of the Sahara desert.
The main attraction in Aswan isn’t in Aswan at all. It is located 175 miles to the southwest at the temple of Abu Simbel. The high dam flooded a tremendous number of ancient sites, especially from the Nubian culture, but the most significant of the historical treasures was the ancient Egyptian temple complex at Abu Simbel. The temple and its giant statues were carved right into a solid rock mountain side by Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 13th century BC. It is a UNESCO world heritage site. The lake behind the dam would have completely covered the site. So, a project to move the entire complex was undertaken in 1968. The statues, temple and surrounding mountain were cut up into huge blocks and moved a few hundred feet up and away from the rising lake. It was an amazing feat of engineering for its time. If you look carefully at an enlargement of the photos I’ve placed in the gallery, you can see the faint grid lines of the cuts made to disassemble move and reassemble the stones. It was an incredible accomplishment. We hired a car and driver to take us there to see it. The journey took over three hours one way. This time there were no speed pumps to slow us down, but we did have to register again with the police and get permission to travel on that road. The drive is through absolute baron desert. There was, however, a small rest stop out in the middle of nowhere, for refreshments at the half-way point. And, we got to see a really neat desert mirage while we were driving. It looked like a huge lake with some hills reflected in it. Very cool!!!
The touts in Aswan were the pushiest of them all. They would come up to you and say “no hassle” and then proceed to hassle you about whatever they wanted to sell you. We tried various ways to combat them, but nothing worked very well. Mostly we tried to pretend that they just weren’t there and after trying several languages on us, they would eventually give up. Though we did stand out from the locals, most of them did not guess that we were Americans. They thought German or Canadian or Australian. It’s unusual to see Americans traveling alone in these areas. They were surprised and appeared pleased when we told them we were American. Everyone here wants to go to America. To them it’s a true promised land.
I’m writing this missive on the 9 hour flight back to Seattle from London. Reflecting back on where we have been in the last two week. We came across a few interesting things that I haven’t yet mentioned:
> While riding in a car on a downtown Cairo highway, we came across a herd of goats on the side of the road. We have seen this kind of thing in many third world countries, IN RURAL AREAS, but not to in the big city. There was no pasture to graze in, nothing to eat there, just a paved street. No one could give us a satisfactory explanation for why the goats were there, just that a man who owned them lived there? Go figure?
> On the subway in Cairo there are separate cars for women (but not men). The women can travel in the “other” cars, but the men can not travel in the women’s cars. Doesn’t sound fair to me?
> Everywhere you look in Egypt there are unfinished “flats” in buildings. It looks like everything is under construction. One of our guides told us that she invested all of her life’s savings to purchase one of these unfinished flats for her infant son and plans to finish it for him by his 18 birthday. They take a very long view of the future here.
> The Arabic language sounds very harsh to my ears. Much of the time when people talk in Arabic, it sounds to me like they are screaming at each other. But, then they finish and smile?
> There is a traditional breakfast food in Egypt called Ful (pronounced like fool), that they served us every morning at the guesthouse. It’s made of smashed and whole Fava beans, spices, oil and some other ingredients. It reminded me of Mexican refried beans. It was a little hard to get it all down every morning, but I guess it was nourishing.
> We noticed that Aswan seemed a lot cleaner than Luxor. The lady at our guesthouse told us that their president Al Sissi, had been to visit Aswan the previous week, so they cleaned up the town for him. Seems like he should visit all the cities regularly.
> Egyptian people smoke a lot. In fact, some of them still smoke on Egypt airplanes. I was reminded of the “bad old days” when we had to breathe it on long flights.
> While flying back to Cairo I was looking out the window and saw a 16 lane freeway (8 lanes in each direction) built way out the in the desert around Cairo, with an occasional car on it. I can’t imagine why it was built there? I remember a similar freeway in Cuba that we drove on, that was built by the Russians. It was sparsely used by trucks, buses and donkey carts when we were there. “Delusions of Grandeur” perhaps or a make work project? It’s hard to know
That about does it for our adventure in Egypt. It was fun getting to know the people and finally coming face to face with all the antiquities I’ve know about much of my life. Back in Seattle the Spring weeds have probably already overtaken my yard, but it will be nice sleeping my own bed again.
I’ve uploaded a few new pix to the photo gallery if you care to take a look, and Carol has already published her Luxor and Aswan blogs:
https://carolapucci-tips.blogspot.com/2019/04/aswan-arriving-by-boat-to-nubian-village.html
Later………… your favorite travelers, Tom and Carol
Aswan Photos
Click to enlarge and see captions
