Bob and Theresa: Egypt - Day 6 - 25 March 2019

Egypt and the Eternal Nile

Day 6 - 25 March 2019

Aswan, Temples, The High Dam,

Philae Temple, Bumper Boats, Our New Boat

We moored in Aswan at the east end of the High Dam.
Look for a small inlet at the upper right with a line of large lake boats alongside a quay. The temples we were to visit are in the lower left on the kidney shaped island. (Google maps screen shot)

This is a Google maps screen shot showing some of the temples we visited

The Queen and her Court!
(Theresa and Vallee)

We're getting to be old hands at using the accommodation ladder to board the small boats

A light chop gave some of the folks up front a refreshing shower!

Never quite got used to having to have a bodyguard with a machine gun wherever we went!

Kalabasha Temple presents a stunning view in the morning sun!

There is a terrific looking quay and set of stairs in front, but we nosed into the bank to the left!

While Kalabasha is the main attraction, several small ruins surround it on the island. All came from different places but were placed together here to be above the water line.
This is the Chapel of Qartasa (Kiosk of Kertasi) a relatively late Roman structure

Just next was Garf Hussien Temple (House of Ptah)

Another view of Garf Hussien Temple

Hassan wanted to discuss some relief carvings but the sun washed them out, so he borrowed Kim's scarf to act as a shade!

The Chapel of Dedwen was originally carved in a rock face

Temple of Beit el-Wali was a rock-cut temple in Nubia, built by Ramesses II and dedicated to the gods Amun-Re, Re-Horakhti, Khnum and Anuket. It was the first in a series of temples built by Ramesses II in that region. The name Beit el-Wali means 'House of the Holy Man' and may indicate its use by a Christian hermit at some point in time.

The main attraction however was Temple Kalabasha, originally located at Bab al-Kalabsha (Gate of Kalabsha) some 30 miles south of Aswan

Sara, Theresa, Janet, and Nancy

The boat ride back

Candace and Weems

Coming aboard Prince Abbas the last time.
We were asked to use our cabins only for the W/C as they had been serviced for the next guests, except for the bathroom.

Mike negotiates the "ladder" (stairs for you lubbers!)

Candace

When Lake Nasser was filled, they built seven boats to provide the expected tourist traffic. Following political unrest in the 90's, four, very fine looking boats (such as this one) were parked. Only three provide the current cruises, and those only in the cooler winter months.

We left MS Prince Abbas and made the very short drive to the High Dam.

There is a roadway across the dam but the military guards it and restricts traffic.

Roadway across dam is well maintained.

The dam sluice gates are operated by this large gantry crane.
(photo taken from bus on dam)

The military presence is not large and no heavy weapons were evident. This was a little surprising in that a failure of the dam would be catastrophic, inundating all of Lower (northern) Egypt (where 90% of the population lives) and causing flooding in the Mediterranean Sea

The power generation plant had excess capacity when built in the 1960's, but now, only supplies a few percent of the total load for Egypt

This mile long lake spans between the High (Soviet) Dam (1969) and the Low (British) Dam (1900)

Using a telephoto, you can see the Low Dam from the High Dam

In the center of the High Dam, there is a car park with information kiosks (Photo taken earlier from boat returning from Kalabasha)

Information kiosks are well done giving a lot of detail about how the dam was constructed

The dam is actually a very large earthen dam with the vast majority of the dam's mass coming from a variety of fill.
It is very broad at the base!

Lots of great photos of the dam construction

Cross section at the hydroelectric power generating station

A great map of the entire Nile basin.
Ethiopia is building a dam upstream of Lake Nasser. It will impact the entire Nile river basin and so far, Egypt and Ethiopia have no agreement as to how water flow will be regulated!

At the conclusion of the Aswan Dam, the Russians (actually, the Soviets at the time) built this huge lotus monument to lasting friendship and cooperation between Egypt and the Soviet Union. Shortly after the dedication, Egypt asked the Soviets to leave!
(Photo taken from the boat coming back from Kalabasha)

The memorial is gigantic and beautiful!
(Photo taken from roadway)

The inside of the "petals" is decorated with symbols of peace and unity. Very few words. Kind of modern hieroglyphs?

We rode the bus a short distance to the new boat, MS Sun Ray (this may be out of sequence - we actually visited the
Philae Temple first. But it's not important to the story.
Besides, I'm guessing you need a Temple/Hieroglyphics break!)
We embarked on our Felucca Ride. Feluccas are large sail boats with unique "lateen" sail rigging.

There was a stiff onshore breeze and getting the boat out into the channel proved to be a challenge for our three man boat crew

Our boat crew (Larry, Curly and Moe, I think) treated us to 10 minutes or so of "Bumper Boats" as they crashed and bashed into just about everything around. Curly (the helmsman) completely ignored the rudder while caroming from boat to boat, and sure enough, if the rudder was over hard right, we circled in that direction. It was funny but also caused many of us to actually locate our PFD and one person to ask to go back to shore!

Finally, underway on the Nile!

Kids on surfboards serenade hoping for some coin.
Hassan gave them a tongue lashing and they ceased.

The tiller was ginormous!
Six inches across!

Not a great photo but a Christian monastery shot into the sun, using a telephoto, from a bobbing boat!

Some very pretty houses on the West bank of the Nile

As is the case in many cities, one of the most economical ways to live is on a houseboat moored to the shore!

A old mausoleum high on a bluff

Lots of brightly painted houses

A recreational facility on Kitchener's Island

A new, very nice mausoleum

The Cataract Hotel where Agatha Christie stayed while writing "Murder on the Nile"

The center seats had been nearly empty when we shoved off, but became popular during the Bumper Boats episode!

The Coptic Christian Cathedral of the Archangel Michael

The ubiquitous Golden Arch Room!

We got back safely on shore. Our river cruise boat, MS Sun Ray, was being moved very close by. As Larry, Curly, and Moe cast off, they quickly reprised the "random-acts-of-navigation" number

Coming very close to playing bumper boats with Sun Ray!

Sun Ray was very similar to Prince Abbas but the cabins were a little more snug and the food splendid!
One funny thing happened - I showered the first night and the hand-held spray unit hose came partly loose from the hand-held part. It shot more water out the back than the front. The cabin steward came to look at the problem and I indicated the shower sprayed out the back. He held it in his hand, pointed it into the tub, turned on the water and got soaked! grinning sheepishly, he promised to get a new one right away!

This woman wearing the traditional burka with a baseball cap caught my eye.

Reception area was a bit more elegant than Prince Abbas

The damp wash cloth and glass of juice was there every time we returned and was very welcome

We went exploring - the top deck lounge

The sun deck

We visited Philae Temple on the way to the Sun Ray from the High Dam. (Sorry for the sequence shift. In this app its relatively complicated to reorder photos without completely starting over!)

More "Bumper Boats"? Yes indeed! This time we have motor!
Never mind that the motor quit a half dozen times and they park the boats by crashing into the boats already there!

Mike and Sara

Charles, Theresa, Nancy, Sara, and Coleen

Hassan pre-arranged with selected vendors to offer certain products at a pre-negotiated price - what you might pay if you haggled for 5-10 minutes.

The man with the machine gun went everywhere with us

"Fleet Landing" on the island

A lovely coffee shop just across the channel from the island

Unlike most of the temples we'd seen to date, the original site of this temple was only a few hundred yards away!
The original temple was partly submerged by the low dam. When they decided to move it, they built a cofferdam around the site and drained the water, excavated the temple and moved it to the neighboring island. You can see some of the pilings form the cofferdam to the left end of the island

The Philae Temples
Philae was said to be one of the burying-places of Osiris, it was held in high reverence both by the Egyptians to the north and the Nubians to the south.

As we came to expect, Hassan found us a shady spot and gave us an in depth overview of what we were about to see

The dark portions of the columns is what was underwater in the previous location. Before the temples were moved, guides would take clients in boats among the columns!

An unusual sphinx

Trajan's Kiosk

The large temple was built during the Ptolemaic (Greek) Kingdom. The main deity honored was Isis, but smaller temples and shrines were dedicated to other gods.