Abu Simbel

Abu Simbel is one of those iconic images of Egypt. Aside from the pyramids of Giza, it is one of the most recognizable symbols of Egypt. It is another temple that was affected by the building of the dams on the Nile. It would have been submerged completely by the raising of Lake Nasser. So in the 1970's a project was initiated to save it from a watery grave. Engineers surveyed it all and figured out where it could be moved. A buffer dam was built to protect it from the rising waters of the lake and then it was cut into thousands of pieces, making the cuts as narrow as possible so as to minimize rock losses in the conservation process. It was moved, piece by piece to the top shore of the lake and reassembled with an exactness that is actually quite a marvel. The process took four years to complete and left Abu Simbel safe from Lake Nasser and available to a visiting public.

It is located a couple hundred kilometers up the shores of Lake Nasser from Aswan and required a long bus ride to reach. It also is quite close to Sudan's border and thus it seems to require special precautions for all visitors. There are only specific times of the day that groups of vehicles are allowed to travel up to the town of Abu Simbel. One of those times is at the early hour of 4:30 in the morning. Given our itinerary for the rest of the trip, in order to make the boat trip on the Nile below the dams on a felucca (a boat), we were going to have to be in that early morning convoy.

At the ridiculously early hour of 3:00 in the morning, I got a wake up call and got up. I packed my stuff and headed down to the lobby. I put my bag there for safekeeping until our return and got my “breakfast” of a couple of buns, a hard-boiled egg, and a wedge of cheese. I only ate the bread. We were to be back at about 1:00 in the afternoon, so it shouldn't be too bad. It might even turn out that there would be reasonably priced food at the temple, so I might be able to get a snack there. I don't know what I was thinking that allowed me to believe that, but I should have known better than to think a tourist area, particularly in this money hungry country, would have such an animal as a reasonably priced bit of food.

Our van arrived and we piled in to go the convoy grouping area. And once again, we were told that at the end we would be expected to give the driver a tip. I piped up at that, having had enough of that kind of thing, and said that it wasn't really a tip then since it was an expected thing. The guide just looked at me and asked if I was listening to him. I asked him if he had anything else to tell us. He didn't. So it didn't really matter to be listening any longer, did it?

Once all the vehicles had arrived and assembled, we all set off. It was a weird convoy. We barely travelled together, with the distances between vehicles becoming ridiculously large before very long. But I guessed they knew what they were doing.

We got to the temple site well after daybreak, but it was still quite chilly. We were told we would have until 9:45 to visit the temple. Hmmm... Nobody was going to go with us to explain things? Hmmm...

We went and got our tickets, for the grand total of 95 pounds, and this included three fees, one of which was for a guide. I asked the people at the gate what that was about. They told me we could get a guide to show us around just inside the entrance. We passed through the security checkpoint. No guides were in evidence. Hmmm... We headed along the path towards the temple. Still no evidence of anyone who might be a guide. At the temple, we looked about and, although there seemed to be groups who had guides, there didn't seem to be any place to meet up with one and make a group. I found this to be really, really annoying. We had been forced to pay a guide fee, but there was nobody about to fulfil that duty. Yet at places where there is no such fee, they are tripping over themselves to take tourist money to show them around. I was a bit sickened and more than a bit angered and embittered by this. Photos were welcome outside the temples, but inside there was not photography. We wandered around inside and looked about. With no guide, as we still could not locate one. It turned out that Isis, our Chinese tour mate, had done a bunch of reading about Egypt before coming here and she could tell me a bunch of things about the temple and the gods and stories associated with it. So she was more useful than these phantom guides at the site. It was actually quite amazing inside, more for the sheer enormity of the task of moving the temple than for the actual carvings and such inside. And despite the prohibition of taking photos, lots of people were taking photos. Anyone caught was reprimanded, but only until they coughed up a bit of cash, Then it became okay. Stunning hypocrisy! And much more overt than in other countries I have visited.

There were two temples. One was for Ramses II, one of the ancient Egyptian kings. The other, smaller temple was for his wife, Nefertari. Both were quite large, with the Ramses temple being much the larger. Wandering through we got a good impression of the artwork of the time.

And towards the end of our allotted time at the temple, people had wandered back to the parking lot to catch buses for the convoy back. This left us with the opportunity to take photos with nobody present and in the way. Yea!!!

Then we rushed back to the van to make sure we weren't too late. But I dropped back a bit. I was still seething at the being forced to buy a guide ticket, only to find no guides doing the job of guiding. I yelled at the guy at the ticket counter who basically shrugged and told me I hadn't looked hard enough. This just incensed me all the more. I asked for where I could go and lodge a complaint. He told me to go and talk to the tourist police. I just looked at him and shook my head. I asked him why he would want me to go home after my trip to Egypt and tell everyone I know that the country is shit and suggest they don't bother spending their money by coming here. I suspect he didn't really understand what I was saying because he just had a blank look on his face after I finished. But it is what I am feeling at the moment. I'm sure there are parts of Egypt that are lovely. It's even possible that one can have a great time at spots like this. But there are so many people who don't give a crap about the experience of the visitor, and only care about getting the money. They are going to end up with people not coming to the country and their tourism will never recover from the blow it received because of the revolution in 2011. And they don't get it. They don't understand that even a place as well-known and on the must visit lists of so many people could possibly get such a bad reputation that they could be stricken from the must visit itinerary of the world.

Upon returning to the van, we found that it was not ready to leave. It turned out that the road to Aswan had been closed. It was unclear why. It seemed there was some kind of people blockage between Abu Simbel and Aswan. I wasn't sure, but I understood from the driver that it might be bandits. This would necessitate some kind of military response to restore safety to the road and we were going to have to wait until the all clear was given to return to Aswan. Initially we were told it would be about half an hour, or around 11:00. But that got lengthened until 1 in the afternoon. We did get moving about that time, but this meant that we wouldn't be back in Aswan until 4:00, three hours after we were scheduled to return. So much for getting to have a good sail on the felucca. But there was nothing to be done about that. I would rather have sat in the parking lot until the next day than be subject to some kind of dangerous situation with thugs on the highway. The only thing that was a problem was that we were hostage to the food sellers in the parking lot. I opted to starve rather than give in to them, or to put any more money into the area given how nonchalant they were to their visitors.

When we got under way finally, we didn't stop anywhere to get a snack. This made the decision final about not giving the driver a tip. It was going to be three hours back and some of us were hungry. If nobody was going to acknowledge that and try to fix it, screw them. No tip. Look after your guests folks!!

After finally getting back to the hotel, we were herded onto another van and taken to the felucca. The felucca staff were justifiably wondering what had happened to us. When they learned of it, they were sorry, for we were only going to have a short time for sailing around on the river before it got too dark to continue. There was no help for that, but they seemed to be much more relaxed about everything than everyone else I have been encountering of late. It was nice to have people with us who seemed to be more interested that we have a good time than just getting our money.

And so we sailed out on the Nile and had some food. We watched the sun go down and the lights of the city come up. And we relaxed. It turned out to be a nice end to the very frustrating day. I hoped the next day would turn out better, for it was going to be my birthday.