Egypt adventure

Early morning this morning- 3am for the drive to Abu Simbel in Aswan. I couldn't sleep on the coach but wasn't as tired as I had expected. We ha a police convoy escort us a major leg of the journey. We arrived and Micky, our tour guide told us all to watch the Nile river as we climbed down to view the temple. We did as he requested and at the bottom turned our heads to see the giant statues that made up the entrance to the impressive temple. Inside were two rows of massive statues forming a passage way to the back of the temple where four statues sat with one, the god of darkness, being hidden in shadows with the other three being illuminated by sunlight. There were little wings in the temple filled with pictures of gods and offerings and slaves and kings, sometimes feasting. There were hieroglyphics on the big walls inside the main base sections and two separate rooms which looked they would have been filled with treasure at one point. It was quite impressive. Next to this temple was another temple, created for his most important wife which was similar but smaller than than the temple of Abu Simbel. 

After this journey the weather had begun to pick up and we headed to the high dam which makes the electricity for Egypt. It was massive and quite impressive. After this short stop we made our way on the coach (where brett enjoyed holding a gun) to Philae temple which was on an island so we had to catch a boat to see it. It was fun having the Nubian men transport us on wooden boats to a temple made in the honour of the God Isis who turned into a bird God to procreate with her partner who had been killed then bought back to life for a few moments to make a baby: Horus II. The temple had been converted into a Christian church do had imprints of crosses and an alter which was a bit bizarre. The temple had a sanctuary which in ancient Egypt held a maximum of two people in it. It was awesome to be able to explore this temple and I appreciated the intention and meaning behind some of the artwork.

Magical Egypt

Arrived in Luxor 36 hours ago. People on the plane ride over here were amazing. I had sinus issues from the week long cold I've had and a few people banded together to give me sinus medication and chewing gum. We were escorted to our hotel by travel talk, out tour company, and met our tour group who had all started their tour in Cairo two days before. We didn't realise we were joining a group that had already started but it didn't matter as we arrived on boxing day and had wanted to spend Christmas with Brett's brother, Sean in England. We got the boring intro and payment stuff over and done with and met a couple of our fellow tour travellers in a local 'Irish' pub. We got a shish kebab each and headed off to bed for some sleep after our 3am start!

We awoke and got onto our mini bus which drove us to Amenhotep III statues. It was pretty amazing to see as they were soo tall and so old! Next up we were off to the Valley of the Kings which I absolutely loved. I paid extra to go and see King Tutankhamen's tomb and boy was it worth it! It was the first time I had ever seen an unwrapped mummy! His head and feet were not covered by cloth and the man in the tomb gave us a lot of information (for a fee of course) and gave us his torch to shine on the body. Tut's body was in a glass, thermoregulated coffin and on the other side was his sarcophagus which he was buried in for thousands of years. Although it was the smallest tomb it was really awesome and by far the highlight of my day. The tombs were pretty awesome with hieroglyphics and paintings on the walls that were beautifully preserved through time buried beneath the earth.

We continued on for Queen Hatshepsut's temple where we saw more Egyptian statues and wall art. There was a tour of Egyptian school boys who took photos of us, the girls, and constantly stared at our boobs. 'So beautiful shakira, shakira' was a common phrase heard from school boys to grown men alike. We then made our way to Aswan on a minibus and arrived on our cruise boat on the Nile river. The place was nice and after a mix up of rooms we got settled in and chatted to some newly made friends. Dinner was served from 8-9pm which was late and we had to be up at 3am this morning so we headed to bed straight after! I am currently sitting on a bus taking us to Abu Simbel which I am quite excited about going to see!