Egypt is a fairly large country. A fact that I didn't realize before I got here and something most Americans probably can't appreciate. The entire country is about 3 times the size of New Mexico. Flying from Cairo to Aswan takes a little over an hour, I think. While we were down there, we decided to take in Abu Simbel as well. Abu Simbel is a temple site that was actually dismantled piece by piece and reassembled 40m above its original location in order to save it from the rising waters of Lake Nasr due to the Aswan Dam. It's really stunning seeing something of this size and knowing that it was totally taken apart, cataloged and reassembled nearly perfectly. If you ever make it to Upper Egypt, it's definitely a can't miss. A 30-45 minute flight from Aswan, it's really not a lot of effort to get there. Unfortunately, in order to fit everything in, we had to fly out of Cairo at about 4am so we could squeeze in Abu Simbel before our boat departed for the day at noon. Despite the lack of sleep (and Mark Tennant missing the flight altogether) it was an incredible experience seeing Abu sitting above the waters of Lake Nasr with nothing around.
Before the cruise actually left the dock, we toured to see the broken obelisk which is basically a large obelisk that cracked while it was being carved, and is still in its original location, showing the quarrying marks and techniques. After that we went to see the heavily militarized dam and a temple on a small island. With the sun setting and the lack of pollution in Aswan, the light was amazing. The shadows on the temple were incredible and the hieroglyphs really stood out.
The rest of the cruise consisted of some delicious food, stops all the way up the Nile for the 4 days that we cruised and a ton of sites. It was almost overwhelming doing all the tours that we did. There were many 5:30am breakfasts so that we could get out before it got too hot. I really feel like we didn't get a ton of relaxation time because we were always on our way to another site, but it was well worth it. It was a vacation I would definitely do again, if only to stay on the boat and enjoy the scenery. Upper Egypt is so much different than the dusty smog bowl that is Cairo. There were green fields touching the bases of the mountains, unfurling right into the Nile with pack animals grazing at the waters edge. We rarely heard car horns, there wasn't nearly as much trash, and the further south we were, the bluer the Nile was. I never thought I'd be able to see down more than 3 feet in this river and go hours without seeing lights, cars, or people for that matter.
The sites we saw were: Abu Simbel, Philae Temple, High Dam, Unfinished Obelisk, Kom-Ombo Temple, Edfu Temple, Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Colossi of Memnon, Temple of Queen Hatshepsute, Luxor Temple and Karnak.
So far, the cruise and the sites have been some of the most amazing memories I've made here in Egypt, and I'd definitely go again.
(Please keep in mind that I forgot my camera, so these pictures come from my iPod camera. I borrowed Steve's camera and took pictures that I'll try to post soon.)