The Great Abu Simbel Temple

It was stinking hot when we landed at the airport in Abu Simbel. Kirsten had lent me a black scarf so I could wear a singlet top underneath & still keep the perverts at bay. Not that they really perved at me cause they definitely prefer blondes over here - thank goodness! The bus ride to the temple didn’t take too long, & after a quick toilet stop, we entered the temple ground gates.
We had to walk about 500m to the entrance of the temple of King Ramses II. This temple & the smaller one dedicated to his main wife, Nefertari, were both moved to a higher level in the 1960's to prevent them from erosion due to flooding. What a massive effort that would have been.

Ramses temple was enormous with many more rooms built into it. It really told an incredible story through the carvings & hieroglyphics which were, literally, all over the temple walls & ceiling & dedicated to various Gods - Isis, Horus, Ibis, etc. The very back room had 4 statues in there, one of which was Ramses. Twice a year at sunrise, the sunlight pierces through the entrance to the very back of the temple into this room & for 18 minutes shines on the statue of Ramses. The last time this happened, the Tourist & Antiquities Police counted over 12,000 tourists on the day coming to observe this phenomenon. Unfortunately, you weren’t permitted to take photos inside either temple, but we were allowed to take photos from the entrance looking in. Of course, the guards wanted a small fee for this & I, of course, completely ignored their request.
Nefertari's temple was built adjacent to Ramses temple, looking out to Lake Nasser. It was much smaller with fewer rooms. This was dedicated to Hathor, the Goddess of love & music, offering many gifts to the Goddess. Neither temple had much colour left, just a few dibs & dabs here & there, generally in areas shielded from the elements.
After an hour of wandering on my own through the two temples, I made my way through the scorching heat back to the café for a Sprite. I completely forgot to visit the visitor’s centre which outlines the process of relocation of the temples - silly me.

10th Nov - Journey to Abu Simbel

We'd been warned previously that the flight to Abu Simbel might require that we get a wake up call at 3am. Thankfully this wasn’t the case as the flight was scheduled for 10:30am. After breakfast, I was feeling quite off colour - feeling a build-up to exploding, possibly out of both sides. So I took it fairly easy. And when we got to Aswan airport & the flight was delayed by 30 mins, it gave me ample opportunity to pay a lengthy visit to the local facilities. Which I did & was even happy to pay 1EP to do.
After a good bowel cleansing, & drinking plenty of water, I felt quite a lot better & was ready to battle the 40 degree heat in Abu Simbel. (Not sure how people cope in the off-season where temperatures can get up to 50 degrees or more here). This was an optional trip on the tour & there were a couple of people who chose not to go. But I’d been told by friends that this was a must-see trip, so it was something I was determined to do.
The Air Memphis plane seemed to date back to the 1960s, its condition reflecting that assumption. There were only a few seats left when I boarded the aircraft - right up the back in a windowless window seat, located next to the engine at the back of the plane. One thing I was extremely relieved of was that my seatbelt worked, cause at the point I sat down, I wasn’t entirely sure I was going to survive the trip. The steward sat in a fold-up chair between the 2 toilets at the back of the plane. I’m sure I saw him praying during the 30-min flight. Cause we could see out the plane from the back row of seats, we thought we’d hit a really rough patch of turbulence when in fact we’d landed. Got there safely!