Our first visit on our last day in Aswan, Monday, December 4th, was to an ancient granite quarry right in town that still contained an unfinished obelisk that had cracked and was therefore abandoned. The ancient Egyptians knew how to smelter gold and copper but not iron, so they used harder stones like the black durite to carve into granite. They would carve a series of holes along a line and fill them with sycamore wood wedges. They soaked the wedges with water causing them to expand and crack the stone along the line. The abandoned obelisk we saw was 137 feet long and estimated to weigh 1200 tons. Current thinking is that stones were moved with log rollers. The stones were rolled into boats on land which would then float during the annual flood and could be taken down the Nile to the desired location. Ramps were used to move stones up onto the top of walls. The amount of work this would take is unimaginable. However, we did see temples that reportedly took 450 years to build, so they apparently had lots of patience.
Our next stop was the Aswan High Dam. There is a smaller dam built earlier by the British but the big dam is now almost 50 years old. Again, it is massive. It has made a huge difference for Egypt in providing reliable irrigation and hydro-electric power.
Our next visit was to the Philae Temple, which was re-located to a higher island before it was submerged in Lake Nasser. We took a short boat trip out to Philae Island. Naturally, a vendor selling cheap bracelets was on the small boat with us. Anita and Olga bought a few bracelets.
Philae Temple was built with stone blocks which were all numbered, dismantled and re-constructed above the new high water level. UNESCO funded this project. It's hard to tell that the temple isn't on its original site.
Like many other ancient temples in Egypt, other religions took over the Philae Temple when it was their turn. There are Christian crosses carved into the walls along with signatures of early travellers to the region.
After we boated back to shore, Chris, Olga and Mohammed went sailing on a traditional Egyptian felucca while we were driven to the airport for our flight to Cairo. As usual, another Blue Sky Travel Group rep accompanied us and made sure we were properly checked in. Idiot proof travelling.
Our hour and a half flight to Cairo was uneventful and we were met by another rep when we arrived, who took us out to a waiting car. When traffic is light, it takes 45 minutes to an hour to get from the Cairo airport to Le Meridien Pyramids Hotel. In late afternoon, it took 2 hours and 20 minutes. The drivers are not nearly as crazy as those in India but the city is very congested. It took so long that at one point our driver had to pull over and jump over the guardrail to relieve himself. We weren't comfortable with all the traffic going by our parked car but we had nowhere to go. He was very apologetic.
Finally, we got to our hotel, had dinner and went to bed. Another eventful day.
Our next stop was the Aswan High Dam. There is a smaller dam built earlier by the British but the big dam is now almost 50 years old. Again, it is massive. It has made a huge difference for Egypt in providing reliable irrigation and hydro-electric power.
Our next visit was to the Philae Temple, which was re-located to a higher island before it was submerged in Lake Nasser. We took a short boat trip out to Philae Island. Naturally, a vendor selling cheap bracelets was on the small boat with us. Anita and Olga bought a few bracelets.
Philae Temple was built with stone blocks which were all numbered, dismantled and re-constructed above the new high water level. UNESCO funded this project. It's hard to tell that the temple isn't on its original site.
Like many other ancient temples in Egypt, other religions took over the Philae Temple when it was their turn. There are Christian crosses carved into the walls along with signatures of early travellers to the region.
After we boated back to shore, Chris, Olga and Mohammed went sailing on a traditional Egyptian felucca while we were driven to the airport for our flight to Cairo. As usual, another Blue Sky Travel Group rep accompanied us and made sure we were properly checked in. Idiot proof travelling.
Our hour and a half flight to Cairo was uneventful and we were met by another rep when we arrived, who took us out to a waiting car. When traffic is light, it takes 45 minutes to an hour to get from the Cairo airport to Le Meridien Pyramids Hotel. In late afternoon, it took 2 hours and 20 minutes. The drivers are not nearly as crazy as those in India but the city is very congested. It took so long that at one point our driver had to pull over and jump over the guardrail to relieve himself. We weren't comfortable with all the traffic going by our parked car but we had nowhere to go. He was very apologetic.
Finally, we got to our hotel, had dinner and went to bed. Another eventful day.
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