Abu Simbel

      Indescribable...the majesty and grandeur of Egypt's ruins. The written word, photography, or film cannot capture what is both seen and felt while visiting the ruins of this fabled land. Tourists flock by the thousands, in deathly scorching heat, just to attempt an understanding of this grand civilization that flourished here so long ago. Although, much of what is known about the ancient Egyptians is still mostly mystery or at least conjecture, what has been found is astounding.

      In lower Egypt, near the Sudanese border, one of the most grand temples was built on the Nile, to impress upon the minds of foreigners the power of the Egyptian ruler "gods". Abu Simbel was built by Ramses II and is fronted by colossal effigies of himself, that although suffering from thousands of years of wear, are just incredible.

      Tourists are required to travel by police convoy at four in the morning to get to Abu Simbel. It takes about 3 hours to get to the site, there are loads of tourist buses in the convoy going down there every day. The funny thing about the convoy is that the police escort van only went with us a few kilometers, then we were left to ourselves.

We went to Philae temple on the way back from Abu Simbel. It is a temple the was built in one of the later Egyptian dynasties on a small island outside of Aswan. It is quite striking as you come up to it by boat, it is like some mythical Grecian island fortified with columns and draped with greenery. It was insatiably hot so we spent most of our time standing in the sparse shade of the still standing pillars.

As we drove to Abu Simbel it was dark. So we could not enjoy the desert scenery until the sun rose, the views became breathtaking as the silhouettes of great sand mountains came into view.

Lake Nasser. This used to be a valley before a dam was built down stream to control water flow. We wonder how much history is buried beneath the water.

This was the view as we came around the mountain at Abu Simbel.

Chelsea standing beside the colossal statue of Nefertiti. Her statue is the same size as Ramses, which shows how revered she was.

Nefertitis temple on the right and Ramses on the left.

We kept passing these trucks full of camels. They were on their ways to the camel markets, there is still a big market for camels here, it is pretty interesting to see them used in smaller towns.

On a boat on the way to Philae temple. 

Philae temple, on this island in the middle of the nile.

Water Taxis.

Egyptian pillar with Christian graffiti.  It was really interesting to see this in the different sites. There are faded paintings of saints in some of the temples with pagan gods in the backgrounds.

The christians came through and literally defaced much of the egyptian artwork, only destroying the faces.

Sacrificial alter in Philae 

Gaurd, gaurding.

Pillars with gods.

Entrance to a temple

Standing below the colossal Ramses statues at Abu Simbel.

Inside Ramses temple, You werent supposed to take pictures, this is all I got. It was full of carving depicting Ramses military prowess.

Desert

Ramses. The man was in love with himself. A complete narcissist, he built all these effigies of himself then he went around  and put his name all the old kings statues.

Abu Simbel outside of Nefertitis temple.

It was early in the morning, but this was the hottest we had been, we drank so much water.