Aswan to Alexandria

Another really early start and another hot, sunny, cloudless sky. By 6 AM we were checked out from the cruise ship and on our way to Egypt’s 2nd most famous tourist attraction, Abu Simbel.

Abu Simbel is 285 KM southwest of Aswan. A 3 hour drive there, a 2 hour visit, followed by a 3 hour trip back to Aswan. Then a 1 hour flight to Cairo, followed by a 4 hour drive to Alexandria. A very long day.

If you ever thought the drive to Windsor was boring, you should see the drive to Aswan. Flat dry dessert. No towns. One bathroom/coffee shop in the middle of nowhere. (The Egyptian version of Enroute). We occasionally pass trucks piled high with hay that blow the van on the road. When you look at some distant mountains you can see why they talk about mirages.

Abu Simbel is significant in that it is a Temple built by Ramses II into the mountain side. The 4 statues outside are 30 metres high. He also built a smaller Temple beside his for his wife Nephretari. Inside the holiest of the Holy part of the Temple their are 4 smaller stature and on 2 days of the year the Sun shines on the statue of Ramses. The hieroglyphics inside the Temple are incredible.

What I think is even more amazing is the fact that the Temple was going to be underwater when they flooded the area for Lake Nasser. So in 1964 there was a race against the time of the dam being built to save it. They decided to move it 65 metres higher. It took 4 years to dismantle it and rebuild it. An amazing feat of engineering. They had to create a new mountain to house it and you can barely see where the pieces were cut.

Following out visit there we had lunch at an authentic Nubian village restaurant. Great food but we are not used to these big meals at noon. We all slept on our way back to the airport for our flights to Cairo.

We arrived in Cairo to another warm evening and headed out on another long drive to Alexandria. I can’t say we saw any of the trip as it was another sleepy van ride. I do recall it was a smooth major highway with mostly transport trucks using it. The trucks here like to decorate their vehicles with all sorts of coloured flashing lights.

We arrived in Alexandria about 1 AM. The streets were full of people and honking cars. Our Hotel is the Windsor Palace and it is right on the Main Street facing the Mediterranean Ocean. The Hotel is very old with extremely high ceilings, gold leaf everywhere and old style French doors for windows. The windows barely close so the noise in the rooms from the crowds and traffic on the street was a little disconcerting. Fortunately we were so tired we fell right asleep.

It was a very long day travelling the full length of Egypt from the south to the north.