Aswan

Before we got to Aswan, my concern about the heat was steadily growing. In Cairo when we told Egyptians that we were heading to Aswan .. they would say "oh, its hot there." And its not here? 50degrees in the summer? Um .. when is summer?

Getting into Aswan, we stayed in a decent hotel that was made great by the small pool on the roof. It wasn't 50 degress, only around 40.

As Aswan was the place to organize Felucca trips down the Nile, we began to look for a sailboat to take us down the Nile to Edfu. We found a great captain named Captain Murad. We discovered later that he had chose us, as we seemed to fit into his laid back sailing style. Beers were not an issue for him, nor was anything really. I would descibe the trip, but why should I when someone else already has. Follow the link on the last blog entry "Yodi gets lazy" for more info.

Before we headed out on our Felucca trip we made it to Abu Simble, 3 hours outside of Aswan, an ancient egyptian place of worship. The only way to travel there was to leave at 3am and travel via convoy. The 3am was to beat the crazy heat, and the convoy was for our safety. No worries Mom, the last bombing in Eygpt was in Dahab in 2006. We get there later :) Still buses were stopped and police used mirrors to look under buses for bombs . I guess. They didn't actually seem to be looking. It also seemed for a little tip (baksheesh) your van was not checked. And although I appreciated the efforts of the Tourist Police in keeping us safe, Yode correctly pointed out that a convoy of 140 buses that is probably visable from space, might not be as safe as they think.

Arriving in Abu Simble, we were amazed by the statues and tombs. We were all less impressed when we found out the whole site had been moved when the Aswan Dam had flooded the original site in the1960's. Still cool though. They did a really good job moving it.

It was also interesting that the dam had flooded an entire country between Egypt and Sudan called Nubia. In fact, in what the Lonely planet describes as ironic, the Sudanese named their portion of the lake, lake Nubia. I wonder if the Nubians find it as funny as the Sudanese.