Grand tour of Egypt: Abu Simbel

Roused by the wake up call at 2.30, we drove in a convoy of buses and mini-buses escorted by the army to Abu Simbel. The trip took more than 3 hours each way, so we drowsed and picked at the breakfast boxes packed for us by the hotel.

Abu Simbel is a truly amazing temple, originally cut into a mountain of sandstone. It was a massive feat of ingenuity and skill to relocate it to save it from flooding by Lake Nasser. Mamboh said that his professor at University had been one of the archaeologists involved and that children from all over the world had sent him handwritten letters with small amounts of money in them to help with the project. The statues at the entrance, all of Ramses II seated, are immense (more than 20 metres high) and were cut in half from the top of the head down through the thickness of the rock so that the cuts would not mar the faces. There are two temples there, both built by Ramses II – dedicated to the Gods Ra-Harakhty, Amun, Ptah and to himself since he was a deified Pharoah.

Nothing could take away from the splendour of these temples, but the impact of several thousand tourists arriving at once and being funnelled through two turnstiles and luggage checks, then following each other in and out of the chambers with ultimately a ten second glance into the ‘holy of holies’ certainly dominated my experience there. A second convoy arrived before we left so things were pretty crowded.

This man appeared to be doing maintenance or repairs on a statue, but he seemed to spend more time posing for photos, and collecting bakshish from the tourists for the pleasure.