0245 hours and multiple alarms go off in the hotel.  I considered cursing for a bit or rolling over and pulling the pillow over my head but decided it would not really be productive.  Besides most of the alarms belonged to us.

We trouped down stairs, picked up our breakfast boxes and headed out with our driver to our mini van to take us to Abu Simbel.

Abu Simbel

“Oh, this is why everyone gets up at 3am”

That was the startled exclamation from Lil as she rounded the corner and came to a halt, staring at the gigantic statues of Ra-Horakhty, Amun & Ptah guarding the temple of Ramses II.

Not even the hordes of tourist groups could dampen the effect of this place, still I’m glad that its low season since even in this season there are a lot of them.  The statues right at the front of the temple are about 20 meters tall and very imposing.

We all stopped for the obligatory group pose with the temple, this took a little time as I’m sure you can imagine since there are 8 of us.  Still we didn’t take 8 different photo’s with 8 camera’s, we figured we could all pass around our photo’s to each other at the end of the trip anyway.

Inside the temple itself is just as impressive, although in a different way.  The full length of the walls are covered with engravings and hieroglyphics depicting the Pharaoh’s greatness in battle, defeating them before the gods.  We all split up and wandered through the temple and its storage rooms although given its size we still all managed to keep bumping into to each other.

We flowed out in dribs and drabs meeting up to one side of the temple before heading off the the smaller Temple of Hathor next to it.  Out front are 6 statues of Ramses and Nefertari in comparison to the others these are only about 10 meters tall.  Inside the temple were more of the engravings and Hieroglyphics still just as fascinating in telling there story.

When we’d finished some of the group stayed behind to ‘absorb’ just a little more the rest of us trundled out to the coffee shop that we’d seen at the gate.  With coffee’s all round one of the waiters comments that Dad was a very luck man with his ‘four wives’ and enquired as to how many camels he’d paid for us all.  Dad of course followed in kind replying that he had three more to come.

The banter continued and right at the end the waiter offered dad two fearri’s for us.  Dad declined the offer stating after that he didn’t think the car’s would be forthcoming!

The drive back in the convoy was a quite one since most of the group tended to nap on the way back.  On our return to Aswan around lunch time we quickly ducked by the hotel to pick up our bags then were driven to the Dahabiyya.

Dahabiyya

The boat on first glance did not appear to be much but as we got onboard that impression revised.  The rooms while small are comfortable each with its own bathroom.  The master bedroom even has its own balcony.  After sorting out the rooms with only two of us having to share we starting sailing.  Or rather the tug started pulling us since there was no wind to speak of but that didn’t really worry us all that much and the captain assured us that when there was enough wind we would sail.  Adding that the wind normally picked up in the afternoons.

The lunch prepared for us was delicious, unexpectedly so with multiple dishes to choose from.

Late in the afternoon we docked at Kom Ombo to see the temple of the same name dedicated to Sobek the crocodile god and Haroeris.

As we arrived there were two of the big cruise ships docked, by the time we left there were about 10 of them.  I am glad that we chose the method of sailing that we did.  It may cost more but I highly recommend it.  Its worth every cent.

We moved on and pulled into shore at an island in the Nile which we had, except for a handful of locals to ourselves.  It was a relaxed, peaceful way to spend the evening away from the hordes.