That noise at 2:55 am was the alarm on my phone. Within an hour we had washed up, gone to the hotel's lobby, collected our "breakfast boxes", had picked up the four other passengers for our van, and met other vehicles at a police escort area. Approximately 15 vehicles ranging from private cars, to the mega-Intercity buses were on the move at 4:00 am.
It's better to avoid the sun, so transportation to Abu Simbel starts early. It's 285 km (175 mile) south into the dry desert. It was fairly uneventful as a trip through the desert usually is. Perhaps not for Bedouin, but I cannot help but escape the thought that humans don't belong there. When going 110K with the a/c blasting, it's easy to realize one is only a visitor. Then, an event occurred to change the sameness: we heard a really large clunk from the front. I wondered if we'd blown a tire; but actually, we'd hit a dog. I don't know what it was doing on there in the middle of nowhere nor why it had decided to cross just as we came careening along. I guess life really is God's Will, fate, karma, or whatever you've been taught to call it.
We got to the Abu Simbel area at about quarter past seven. The buses had become miles apart during the journey and we arrived well before others. The price of admission of all Egyptian monuments seems to have risen from even the most recent guide books. It cost 110 pounds to see these two rescued temples.
These, however, were amazing in themselves and definitely were worthy of preservation. I kept thinking of the history of the 1960's and the flooding of Lake Nasser as much as the original historical value. In school I remember first learning of the very involved rescue. I want to say it was in Mr. Ken Greenbaum's class, which would have been around 1971. You know, it may have been in one of those 16-mm "Shell" films. The oil company used to provide very didactic films about things of educational interest. Were they a type of advertising? I can’t remember but I will have to check to see if any are on YouTube.
It was amazing to walk into these transplanted mountains with view of just a small part of the enormous lake created by the Aswan Dam. Saving the temples seemed truly an international effort. Alas, perhaps it felt that during the late 60's anything was possible. I wasn't very old but this would have been the same era as the moon landings. People realized they could, quite literally, move mountains. I fear if the situation presented itself today, a unified effort would not happen. No country or body would be able to find the financial resources necessary for such a project. As an international community, we seem to have lost our "mojo".
Jay and I stayed at the site and in awe for two and a half hours. It was just enough time. Then, we returned to our hotel in Aswan at about 1:15 pm.
The Nuba Hotel was quite terrible. I'll let Jay vent on Tripadvisor about that. I am mentioning this as although we had paid for three nights, we spent just two in order to catch the cruise down to Luxor. The boat was due to leave at 3:30 in the morning. Rather than get up really early, we just paid for the extra night on M/S Miss Esidora.
We checked in in time for lunch. We spent the rest of the day on the sun deck or in our room. It is nice change after our backpacking-type of travel up to this point. The cruise line advertises itself as 5 star but a “Dennis scoring” might land it at a 3 to 3.5. Still it seems wonderful to us. We will be going to bed still in Aswan, but we will wake up down river.