Nefertart Abu Simbel

... and engineering to move this temple and create the new artificial mountain that houses it. The ancient science is pretty impressive too. The temple was built so that direct sun would hit the statues at the back of the temple only 1 day a year - Ramesses birthday. They managed to move it so that it happens exactly 1 day late. Not bad considering it would be under water now if it hadn't been moved.<br><br>This ...

Road trip in a convoy of coaches with a police escort and our very own armed guard with his AK-47 on the coach as we travelled 3 hours each way to Abu Simbil.<br><br>Saw my very first herd of wild camels just standing around in the desert watching us go by but apart from that it was 3 hours worth of sand. But, wow, was it worth it! When you first get a view of this temple it just takes ...

... see it in person. It is awe inspiring, almost as much as seeing the pyramids.<br>Ramses II had four massive statues of himself built at the entrance to the temple that honours Ra, the sun god. These statues are probably about as tall as a three-story building. Incredible to see.<br>He also had a monument built for his wife, Nefertari, but this one isn't nearly as huge. Still imposing but compared to Ramses' monument a bit small. This temple was built to honour Hathor.<br>The police convoy ...

... us things, refusing to take no as an answer, following us to our destination, and that the temperature remains a constant 130 degrees, except at night when it falls to 115. Oh, and because it is so conservative we are dressed in our muslim gear, which means we have as little skin showing as we can bear.<br><br>In addition to the hassle, everyone is trying to cheat you. For example, store owners try to sell you water for 10 LE when it should be 2-3. In Aswan, we ...

... the emergency oxygen masks came undone about a poor japanese passenger who just held it out of the way from the rest of the flight. It was actually pretty funny to watch, hehe. We landed but didnt get off the plane, although Dan and I had to play musical seats and move to the back of the plane. The maintenance crew came in and retaped the emergency oxygen back into place..and more people boarded. We got a fizzy drink on the flight from Aswan to Cairo..we scoffed a bag of ...

... couple kindly gave us some breakfast as we had earlier refused our guest houses virsion of breakfast - moldy bread with the mold scraped off with fingernails didnt sound the best!!Anyway, we paid for our ticket to get in and the ruins are out of this world amazing. The whole of the temple was moved up the mountain because of the Aswan dam. The dam flooded the whole valley and the Egyptians could find no other way of getting around ...

... to control the Nile flood, create electricity for the whole of Egypt and form Lake Nasser, the world&#8217;s largest reservoir. We toured the High Dam wall and the Monument to acknowledge Egypt and Russia&#8217;s cooperation in the dam&#8217;s construction. From there we went to the site of the ancient Unfinished Obelisk- which was to be the largest obelisk ever built (42 metres), but a flaw in the granite created a crack and so the carving was abandoned. <br><br>Our final ...

... the sunrise over the desert and then back to sleep. After 3 and a bit hours we finally arrived at Abu Simbel, Yay! so we bought our tickets and then started on the path around the mountain to the front. The first glimps you get of Abu Simbel is breath-taking, this huge Temple carved into the rock face with 4 massive statues sitting and then on another mountain is another temple! <br><br>The temples were actually moved piece by piece when the High Dam was created, can you ...

... above the sand, the next head was broken off, and of the remaining two, only the crowns could be seen. Each statue is more than 20m high and is flanked by smaller statues of the king's family. Unfortunately, pictures inside are strictly forbidden. I did manage to snap a few "off the hip" tho. No flash = no harm, right? :-) <br><br>Remarkably, the entire mountain was "moved" in the 1960's due to the creation of the world's largest man-made lake, Lake Nasser. Luckily for ...

... may well be over 3,200 years old, but part of the mystique lies in the fact that they were long hidden by shifting sands until two hundred years ago. They were then painstakingly moved to make way for Lake Nasser in recent decades. The sentries outside the entrances to both temples, four of a twenty metre tall Ramses outside his and six of a ten metre Neferarti outside hers, were astonishingly imposing. Inside, we got our first major ...