Moving Temples, literally

The journey today begins on an overnight train....

Well actually a bit before that. I ended up heading for the train station with a guy (owner of the hostel) and a buddy of his. We were headed to the station left at 9:30 for a 10:00 train. We were cutting it close and driving through ridiculous and hectic traffic. One thing I realized is that there are not very many traffic lights in Cairo and a lane for the car is where ever there is room for the car. No lines are needed. What this does do (lack of lanes and lights) is force the Egyptians to be very good at merging and keeping the traffic going. Cars are on top of each other. Did I mention that we got bumped by another car? Shame. We were still moving forward, rolled down the window and they exchanged some pleasant words in Arabic and we kept on moving. We had a train to catch. Meanwhile I am thinking again, how do I get myself in these situations! We hit the station at about 10:03. Good thing our train came at 10:20!

Surprisingly it was much more comfortable then expected, well air-conditioned (very well airconditioned, I was freezing), they sold food from a cart and there was plenty of room. Our compartment was full but pleasant, all but one of us were foreigners. Things were fine. I even slept a bit! They had a bit of trouble with the power, but over all an uneventful trip. It is really nice to get out of Cairo.

Aswan is a small city in the South of Egypt. Basically there is nothing south of Aswan except for Sudan. Apparently with the building of the High Dam, they flooded all the Nubian poeple that lived here and no there is Lake Nasser and dessert. And the whole reason I came here: Abu Simbel temple. It is 250km south.

What makes Lake Nasser and this dam so famous is that in harnessing the Nile, they were to flood ancient temples and leave them underwater for ever. Unesco came in and with the help of many nations around the world, about 20 of these temples were moved to higher ground so that we can still view them and four were dismantled and shipped to other countries. (The one in the US is at the Met in NYC.) So today I saw the dam and Philae temple. Philae was partially underwater after the construction of the first dam and was to be totally flooded. So they moved it over 8 years to a higher island. kind of cool. Since the Romans were here, they saw the temple and defaced all of the Egyptian and Nubian gods, Scratching out imagery and heiroglyphics. They also carved crosses in the walls! Kind of crazy, the amount of work it took to build and carve, and then to destroy.

Abu Simbel is the reason I came to Aswan. It is a huge temple built by Ramses II. It was also moved due to the waters of Lake Nasser and the High Dam. It took something like $40 Million to do ti. We are leaving at 3:00am to get there. Yikes! I guess you need a police escort (safety) and it gets pretty hot there too. For all you blog watchers out there, I am not sure if I will have time to write for a couple of days. Tomorrow, I get back and immediately jump on a Felucca (little sail boat) for my cruise on the Nile and I will be on that for about a day and a half...I am sure there won't be any internet there!