Monday, February 16, 2009



Friday, January 23rd. We set the wake up call for 2:30 A.M. so we could catch the 4o'clock bus to Cairo airport for the flight to Abu Simbel in the southern part of Egypt. We flew a small turboprop P.A.S. (Petroleum Air Services) charter plane, which seats about 50 passengers. PAS is a commuter sype airline which services the oil industry executives in the Middle East.

Abu Simbel is a relatively new city built in the 1960's when the Aswan High Dam was being built. The dam created a 300 mile long lake, Lake Nasser, which would flood many archaeological sites, especially this one. An effort by UNESCO in 1960's resulted in spending millions to break up this site, block by numbered block, raise it several hundred feet above the level of the lake, and re-assemble it. The architects of the plan did so admirably.

This impressive site features giant temples dedicated to Ramses II and Nefretari with their statues almost 100 feet high sitting on their thrones, facing the Nile River. I won't bore you with details of the temples, but essentially, it's pictures, hieroglyphics and columns from floor to ceiling. When you see these types of breathtaking sites every day, you begin to get jaded. We toured Abu Simbel for over an hour and then set out for a 2 1/2 hour drive through the Sahara to the Aswan High Dam, which was actually the second Aswan Dam. The initial one, 4 miles away was completed by the British in 1902, but it proved inadequate to hold back the raging power of the river.

The highway crosses the top of the dam, similar to the Hoover Dam in Nevada. The dam looks unimpressive, nothing like the Hoover Dam. This dam has its plusses and minuses. On the positive side, the dam supplies 40% of Egypt's power needs and helps to irrigate the farmland. The annual Nile floods ended in 1964. Crocodiles cannot get past the dam to terrorize lower Egypt.

The main negative is that the dam is an ecological disaster. The Greens or the Sierra Club would never allow a dam like this to be built today. The annual floods formerly delivered silt to lower Egypt to nourish the land. The farmland soil in lower Egypt is now saline and needs chemical fertilizers to grow crops. Certain crops won't even grow in Egypt anymore. The large lake has altered the climate, making it more humid. The extreme desert heat is bad enough when it is dry, but when humid, it is unbearable. Even the fish catch in the Mediterranean has been adversely affected.

There's more. The Nubians and Sudanese found their farmland flooded by the lake. The Egyptians had to buy them off, relocating over 60,000 people, using Russian money. The Russians charged 14% interest on the loans, and the Egyptians paid back every ruble. The Russians were like the bull in the china shop. As creditors, they ran the dam and threw their weight around the country.

Close to the dam was the 4th Century B.C. Greek temple on Philae Island dedicated to the goddess Isis. It was raised up out of the water where it had been flooded out by the first Aswan Dam in 1902. It was partially submerged for most of the year. Italian engineers figured out how to relocate and reassemble 42,000 blocks from the water to dry land, and the temple is quite beautiful. We had to take a ferry to get there.


At Aswan, we boarded the Nile Adventurer, one of the numerous cruising boats plying the Nile. The cruise goes from Aswan to Luxor, a distance of several hundred miles. These are all fairly similar in size, although ours was newer and perhaps more luxurious (to meet Tauck Tours standards). Dianne's lifelong dream was to take a cruise down the Nile, and here we were finally doing it. The boat is much smaller than ocean going cruises like those of Royal Caribbean or Carnival Lines. It accommodated about 50 passengers--the 35 from our tour, a large family from New Zealand having a reunion, and a rival tour director and his wife previewing a tour for his company.

The dining room is intimate by cruise ship standards, but it was certainly big enough for the passengers. The meals were buffet style with Egyptian food and wines. Nobody went hungry, although there was no midnight buffet like on the large cruise ships. Our stateroom was comparable to those on large cruise ships, with a large porthole.

In our two evenings on the ship they entertained us. We had a traditional Egyptian "Galabeya Night" where the guests (us) donned galabeyas which are traditional Egyptian gowns worn by both men and women. We purchased galabeyas, headscarves, and veils for the women. I wore a fez and scarf on my head, and Dianne wore a veil with tassels. The crew staff treated us to traditional Egyptian music and dancing.

On the second night we were entertained by a belly dancer and a whirling dervish. A whirling dervish is a male, bearded dancer who spins around for about a half hour wearing several full colorful skirts, creating a beautiful effect. He removes each of them in the course of the dance. I guess the best way to describe him is a male burlesque dancer, although he walks off the stage wearing clothes. The dance has a religious significance of the Mehlevi Order in Turkey. The whirling dervish is defined as a mystical dancer who stands between the material and cosmic worlds. Got it?

The attractive belly dancer invited several male members of our tour to dance with her. A staid, retired banker from our tour, who shall go unnamed, was, to the dismay of his wife, a willing participant in the dance, which we found more entertaining than the belly dancer herself. What happens in Egypt stays in Egypt! Our fellow travelers are all well-traveled folks seeking adventure and are willing to try most anything. As they say, a good time was had by all!


The boat made two significant stops on our cruise. The first was the Kom Ombo Temple which was built by the Ptolemies under Roman influence fairly recently in ancient Egypt chronology. The temple was built originally to accommodate the sailors going up and down the Nile who would stop and pray at the Temple and trade. The temple building is symmetrical with two entrances, two halls and two sanctuaries, because it was dedicated to two gods--the falcon god Horus, and the crocodile god Sobek. Noteworthy are the many columns carved with the lotus of upper Egypt and the papyrus of lower Egypt to signify their union.

The town of Kom Ombo is populated by Nubians who were relocated there after the construction of the Aswan Dam. We toured a Nubian village and were invited into a large tent covered by rugs to smoke hashish from the large water pipes that are sold in many shops across Egypt. The nubile Nubians took photos of our tour members. Once again, what happens in've got the idea. Hopefully the negatives were destroyed.

Nubia is where black Africa begins, and many, if not most Egyptians appear to be of mixed race in that their skin is dark although their features appear Caucasian. A few years back, there was an Afro-Centric movement in American archaeology in which certain scholars held that the ancient Egyptians were Black. I think we've seen enough ancient pictures and writings to conclude that some Egyptians, probably the Northern ones, were Caucasian, while the Southern ones, from Nubia were Black.
Most likely, they intermarried, even in ancient times, and most Egyptians carry the features of both parts of the country.

At the other stop was the Temple at Edfu which was also built by the Greek Ptolemies.
It stands halfway between Aswan and Luxor. This temple was buried in sand and mud until it was unearthed in the late 1800's As a result, it survived the great earthquake of 27 B.C. which destroyed many of the Egyptian temples, and it is remarkably well preserved. This thing is huge. The front is as large as a modern sports arena.

Edfu is dedicated to Horus, the god of protection, and who is symbolized by the body of a man and the face of a falcon on the wall carvings and statues. The temple's significance is to mark the location where the falcon god Horus fought a fierce battle with his uncle Seth who had murdered Horus's father Osiris. Seth (not related to the son of Adam and Eve) was the evil model for Satan in the Christian world.

The reveration of Horus carries over to the present day. The "all-seeing" eye of Horus is featured on the Great Seal of the United States and is pictured on the back of the one-dollar bill. That eye signifies healing and protective power, but for many it is associated with secret societies, esoterica and the occult.

Next: The Great Karnak, Luxor and the Valleys of the Kings and Queens



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