Egypt - Cairo to Aswan

The Sphinx and Khafre pyramid, Giza

Friday was a food shop with mum before setting off to Heathrow. Found the second to last parking spot, had a huge pub meal and watched the last episode of Line of Duty. After all the hype, we were a bit underwhelmed.

The public bus to terminal 5, for £1.65, we hope, instead of the £6 for the once hourly shuttle! Arrived to find that bag drop was opening in an hour and 15, not the 15 we were expecting. Breakfast then, full Costa Coffee or empty Aston Kohars Indian restaurant? The latter won, and we actually had a pleasant breakfast. Then we hit mayhem, so many people, ski trips, the lot. We only had to drop bags, we had boarding passes on our phones, but the queue was massive. A constant call for people on flights up to 09.30, ours was 09.45, eventually we got to the front and got rid of our bags. Straight to security then and another massive queue. We were just at the front when they started calling 09.45 flights. Finally at the gate and breathe. Might just buy a bottle of water, I can still taste bacon. Just as well I did, and that we’d had a good breakfast as on our 5hour flight not only did BA not give us any movies, the total food offering was the smallest bottle of water and a packet of crisps! Very not impressed!

The Great Pyramid of Giza, the only surviving largely intact of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Constructed around 2600BC, making it 4600 years old. Originally 146.3m high, it's now 138.5m so  slightly lower than Khafre Pyramid

Egypt wouldn't be Egypt without camels - and there were lots of them!

Arrived on time at 16.45, having seemingly circled the pyramids, just because we could. Came down the stairs following signs to immigration/baggage reclaim and found a man with an “Explore” clipboard. He took us through to buy our visa stamp, from one of the banks, stuck it in our passports and sent us through immigration. What service. We had applied for our Evisa online, paid the money, but been declined with no refund, so glad this worked out. Little queue and our bags on the carousel as we approached, fab, we re-found our man who put us in a minibus and sent us, hungry, on our way. An hour and a half across Cairo, in what we were to discover, was relatively light traffic! Pyramids Park Resort Hotel: Comfortable room, with a wedding just outside and an all you can eat buffet in the restaurant. Better than that the hideous wedding music stopped at 21.30, though the phonecall to the room at a quarter past midnight did ruin my nights sleep!

These things just have to be done!

Wake up call at 06.30 and welcome meeting at 07.30 with Wael our tour leader. Then off to the Pyramids, 10 minutes from the hotel, with Mahmoud, our local, history guide, and the tourist policeman with big automatic pistol under his jacket! The Great Pyramids and Sphinx were just as you’d imagine them, so a good start.

And I was there too!

Pop into the papyrus workshop, while Wael nipped off to buy our packed lunch, falafel in pita sandwiches, which we ate on the way to the museum. Very crowded, and seemingly full of exhibits, though many have been moved to the new museum, which isn’t quite open yet. Mahmoud did well, cherry picking a few things to tell us about before sending us in to see the Tutankhamun exhibit, which was fabulous.

This is the Egyptian museum, originally and English palace during colonial rule. A brand new museum is nearing completion much closer to the pyramids that will replace this one and some artifacts have already been moved, but there was still lots to see, with in depth coverage from our history guide

The first group meal gave us chance to get to know, or at least try to remember the names of, most of the group. We have single travellers Christine, Beverley and Gavin. Chris, Melanie and his daughter Sarah, and couples Eunice and Steve and Jenny and Paul.

There's too much and too many photos to talk about it on here, you'll just have to go yourself! There's a whole section on Tutankhamun, but I couldn't take any photos, they are not allowed and the staff patrol it with gusto and you get shouted at as soon as you go for your camera! This is a photo of a collection of mummies, there are loads of them, most of them unmarked. I just felt a bit uncomfortable about bodies being on display in a cabinet and our guide did agree with me

Six o clock wake up to go to more pyramids at Saqqara, smaller but much more impressive, we could go into these (we could have paid to go into the Great Pyramid, but there is nothing in there to see) which were beautifully decorated. The first with stars and hieroglyphics and with the hidden guardians, only visible when a torch is held in just the right place, completely invisible when the light is on. The second, which used to only open for private groups for $5000 has amazing carvings of people and animals, apparently preparing for a feast. Really enjoyed our visit there, and we beat the crowds too.

Next day we went to another site in Cairo, this is the step pyramid at Saqqara and is the first and oldest pyramid in Egypt, built between 2675 and 2625BC. According to their chronology it is a little older than Stonehenge in England. It was built by Imhotep, regarded as a genius. His remains were placed into a tomb, that we were allowed to visit. It is located on the north side, but his internal organs were placed in a deep tomb on the south side as a means of uniting Upper and Lower Egypt

Back to the hotel, quick shower, pack and lunch and into the joys of Cairo traffic. First to see the Citadel of Salah El-Din and the mosque of Mohammed Ali. Now a beautiful ‘show’ mosque so women were allowed in. The views over the old town of the many minarets were amazing. A quick trip to the bazaar followed, we could probably have done without it, though it was an interesting experience, and I did get to stroke my first cats, not least to see the work going on on a big mosque that has to be finished by Friday for the beginning of Ramadan. Apparently they are working 24 hours a day, with thousands of people.

Here we are entering his tomb. Apparently until recently entry into this was restricted and chargeable at $5000 per visit, but it is now open to all after paying the entrance fee of 180 Egyptian Pounds (about £9 UK pounds)

We got back on our bus at 17.15, to travel 9km for our 19.45 overnight train, to Aswan, which had it been on time, we were in severe danger of missing. We arrived at 19.30, though sadly the train, and our dinner, didn’t arrive till 20.45! Into our tiny little two person cabins, a just about presentable ‘airline dinner’ and bed. Brian slept, not sure I did, but here we are, still on the train, had breakfast, and blog written. Hopefully arriving at Aswan 11.00 ish.

The hieroglyphics cut into the walls are as clear as the day they were cut. Now here's an interesting fact, the translation we have today was done by the Frenchman Jean-François Champollion in 1803 using the Rosetta Stone that is currently in the British Museum. It shows a decree written in hieroglyphics, with translations underneath in a Demotic script and also Ancient Greek. Our understanding of hieroglyphics and the translation done all comes from this source 

We arrived at Aswan not far off, and went to a very nice hotel, on an island (Pyramisa Island Hotel), so taxi to the dock, then little boat. Quick lunch and out for the camel ride to St. Simeon’s monastery, though half of us didn’t actually want to ride a camel, some of them looked a bit sad, so we walked the 10 minute shortcut! The monastery was a ruin, relatively interesting, but very warm. Very happy to see a jackal though. Dinner was at the Nubian village, we walked through all the tourists, to a house that Explore used to use for overnights. It was a lovely, home cooked meal, but I’m quite glad we weren’t staying there!

This is the burial chamber, beautifully painted with colours still vibrant today. But here's the thing, our guide turned off the lights and shone a torch against both side walls to reveal a 3D image not visible normally...

We didn’t get to enjoy our posh hotel as it was straight to bed to make up for the lack of sleep on the train and because the alarm call was for 03.30! It’s a 3 1/2 hour drive, each way to Abu Simbel, for a 90 minute visit. This really goes against the grain with me as I’ve said for a long time if the activity took less time than the journey then was it really worth it, in itself and ecologically? We had been assured by everyone we know, John, Helen and Richard and Jan and Paul that it was, so we thought we’d better do it!

Can you see that outline in the shadow above the tomb (there's a similar on on the other side)? It's King Imhotep with his left hand across his chest and with his right arm raised, silently keeping guard over the tomb. With lights on you can't see any evidence of it. Creepy!

Abu Simbel is a Temple built by Ramesses II to declare himself a god and to honour his favourite wife. The two temples are amazing, huge carvings outside, carved into the rock, and intricate carvings inside. Almost as amazing is the fact that they were moved when the Aswan dam was built in their entirety. The rock was removed to within a metre of the temple by machines, and then the temple was hand sawed to cause as little damage as possible and moved piece by piece. It was worth the journey I’m pleased to say, though I do wish dinner could be earlier than 19.30!

Later that same day (top speed tour this!), but still in Cairo, here we are at the beautiful mosque of Muhammed Ali, saviour of Egypt by fighting and killing invaders. 

We returned to Aswan and boarded our cruise boat, in time for lunch, for the three night stay that will take us up the Nile to Luxor. We have finally turned down an optional excursion, into town to walk around with Wael, well, we popped out to buy a local SIM card, cheaper for 11GBytes of data which will easily last us till the end of the trip, than one day’s data onboard that apparently wouldn’t be good enough for anything. So I’ve done my bit, over to Brian to post

Just fabulous decorations inside. Apparently there are 365 lights in there, one for every day (we didn't count them!)

After visiting a bazzar we headed through very heavy Cairo traffic to the train station to catch an overnight train to Aswan, near the bottom of Egypt

Here we are on our overnight train to Aswan. Small, quite old but perfectly comfortable. They changed the bottom into a bed, I had the bottom bunk, Jackie had the top, there's a ladder underneath for access to the top

Arriving at Aswan Railway Station at 10:00am and Wael, our tour leader arranging two taxis. Luggage goes on the roof of these 1970's classic cars

Followed by a boat ride to the five star Pyramisa Island Hotel

Which was very nice

This was our view over the Nile from the bedroom window. Pity we were only there for one night

Straight back out on the boat for the camel ride (we didn't do that, so did a walk instead) up to the monastery

Here's the  rest of them coming to join us at the monastery

There's Gavin in front, Melanie and Wael our tour leader

Gavin and Wael again and, I think, Sarah in front

This is inside the ruined Coptic Christian monastery, which was really quite extensive. There were rooms there for Muslims who they used to allow to rest there during their pilgrimage to Mecca. It was built in the 6th century up in the hills out of the way of the Romans who persecuted them

A brief visit back to our room and out again to the Nubian village evening meal, which required a lovely cruise along the Nile

There's Wael leading us through the noisy part of the village, up the hill to a very peaceful part where we met the family and had a meal

Nice view up there, in the distance is the lower Aswan dam known as the British dam, built in 1902. Further upstream is the new high dam built in the 1960's. That's the one that required Abu Simbel temple and several others to be relocated to higher ground

We were in bed by about 9:00pm and then up again at 3:30am to drive three hours to Abu Simbel, very close to the border with Sudan in the very south of Egypt

This is what we came three hours to see, the temples of Ramasses II and his favourite wife Nefertari 

This is Ramasses II temple. It was carved out of solid rock in about 1264BC, but then raised in the 1960's to escape the water following the building of the high dam. The four images show Ramasses II in his 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's. The second from the left broke away during an earthquake not long after it was made. It was never repaired as some though it signaled displeasure from the gods

This is inside. All these figures were carved out of the rock in one piece. There are quite a number of rooms off, all with exquisite carvings on the walls. It was a masterpiece when it was constructed, but even more of a masterpiece to move it up in the 1960's without damaging it

These are some of the wall carvings

This is Queen Nefertari's temple, smaller but still very impressive. Even the surrounding rock was pieced together exactly as it was in its original site

This is a view as we came in. The two temples are on the left, lake Nasser created by the dam on the right. The temples were originally down under the curved bay you can see there

So after our very early start we're now on our boat for our luxury cruise down the Nile

We have quite a nice room and we're here for three nights - luxury! However early starts to avoid crowds and the heat of the day (40 C tomorrow apparently!), so up at 5:30am. So I'm going to post this and get to sleep now - Jackies already asleep at 10:00pm. Night, night!