Abu Simbel

Whew! it's hot here!!!! Low thirties..we're melting!

We are having fun in Aswan, it is a nice city and very cheap to travel here...we are eating 3 course meals for about $4 per person. The hotel is nice and offers an amazing free breakfast.. I had crepes and an omelet today, yum...first real breakfast yet. They don't really eat much for breakfast here..just bean dishes and tea.

Yesterday we went to Abu Simbel, a town about 40km north of the Sudanese border along the Nile by Lake Nasser, to see the Ramses II temples. They are huge statues/temples carving into the side of a mountain...it was actually originally in a different location but had to be moved up hill when the dam was built..it's amazing that they moved them as they are very huge and impressive...quite a sight for any ancient travellers venturing up the nile to be greeted by back in it's day.

Getting to Abu Simbel was quite the adventure...well, getting home was more of one. The road to Abu Simbel is blocked my police and only certain vehicles can use it at certain times of the day...We could have taken a tourist police caravan(that left at 4am and cost 60LE) which wasn't our favorite option since some people we met at the hotel said it was way too crowded and horrible(and early!)..or we could take the public bus for 20LE and leave at 8am....we took the bus and were the only women on it, but thankfully, there were two French tourists beside us(only 4 white people allowed per trip). The ride up was OK but it took 5 hours with frequent stops to smoke and have tea at passing cafe's...however, once we arrived in Abu Simbel we were dropped off in the middle of the street with no sign of a bus station to place to buy tickets home...and as it is everywhere here, everyone we asked gave us different answers. We took the average of the answers and hoped the existance of a 4:30pm bus home was true and went to the temple by taxi. When we were finished seeing it at 2:30pm we took a taxi back to town in search of the so called bus station and paid our taxi driver Nasser to show us the town, as we had time to kill. He took us to his house where we met his kids, wife and parents who all live under a "roof", that being sticks, the size of my living room...the kids and his mom got a real kick out of seeing themselves in picture from the digital camera. He took us back to where the bus let us off and said that a 4:30pm bus would be there to take us home...so we sat in the cafe with Nasser and had a drink and waited..and waited ..and 4pm came and no bus...however, the offerings of a private taxi for 350LE kept increasing!!!! Also we didn't see the two french guys and began to wonder....so Sue went on a door to door survey of where the bus came and we found out the station was 500meters down a side street...when Nasser drove us there we found the french guys in a mini-bus(ie. 8person van with 12 people in it) and got the last 2 seats at 15LE leaving in one minute!!! That was close but we won, and got it cheaper!!! The ride back was very uncomfortable on a seat with metal poking into my back crammed in a van with 12 smelly Egyptian men but it took only 3hours to get back and they dropped us off at the hotel so it was awesome. Then we went to a restaurant with Claude and Didier (the french guys)for dinner...their limited english and our high school french got a workout but we did ok. They were both really nice and very well travelled..we think Claude is filthy rich somehow as he said he is retired and travelled the world and lives in a 200yearold chateau in France passed down from his family..and he was too young to have worked a full career...and wouldn't say exactly what he did for a living before...just many jobs...a mystery!!!

Today we leave for our cruise, check-in is at 11am...although we still have to find the ship...easier said then done..there are hundreds of ships and as in all of Egypt nothing is labelled corectly, and 10 people will give you 10 different answers! Wish us luck...we may be swimming up the Nile to Luxor:)