Our team "Habibi" group lead by our guide Moataz in yellow.Woke up this morning and we had arrived in Aswan. Aswan is as far south as you can go on the Nile without passing through Lake Nasser and into Sudan.
Aswan is known for granite and swan means "solid" in Arabic. Arabic words usually start with a vowel so they added an "A" in front - Aswan. Many of the granite features (sarcophaguses, obelisks, etc) of the temples and pyramids we saw further north came from granite quarries here.
UNFIISHED OBELISK
We visited the Northern Quarries where an unfinished obelisk sits carved out on 3 sides in the quarry. Originally destined for Luxor Temple, the 42 meter high obelisk cracked during production and was discarded. Had it not cracked it would have been taken uncarved down to the banks of the Nile and set on a boat on dry land waiting for a flood to lift it to take it north (downstream) to Luxor. They were too massive to load into a boat already in the water and finishing them and carving them took so much time that it was done after delivery in case it sank in the river on its way to its final destination.
ASWAN HIGH DAM
Matt & Timmy part of team "Habibi" on the Aswan High Dam
Using Suez canal money, the dam was built in 1960 under President Nasser's administration to control the Nile floods. The dam created lake Nasser, the largest man made lake in the world.
They had to move several temples and Nubian cities that would be covered by the lake. These cities are now called Nasser cities. The floods of 2 years ago would have made millions homeless without this dam. The lake created by the dam can hold enough water to last Egypt through a 3 year drought and increased Egypt's cultivatable land by 30%.
One of the temples that had to be moved after the dam created Lake Nasser was the Temple of Isis on Agilkia Island.
TEMPLE OF ISIS
Moved with the help of the Italians, this temple required a short boat ride to Agilkia Island. The temple was moved after the dam was built. Before the move it was under water 1/2 the year and when submerged you could go out on a row boat and peer down at the underwater ruins from above. The temple was started around 380 BC.
Brian Boarding the feluca (sail boat) for Kitchner's Island.
Another note on security....
Security at the dam was a joke. They had a building on the dam with a metal detector and an X-Ray machine. Lots of. buses pulled up and parked but you simply got off and started walking around. No one had to go to the building. One bus pulled up in front of that building. Some folks passed bags through X-ray and some didn't. They did have an x-ray machine for bags at the granite quarry... but no one was looking at the screen!
Party
Last night they had a "Galabiya" party on the boat. Brian and I were unsure we wanted to go but it turned out to be a real hoot! It was fun hanging out with some of the folks we have met on our boat.
Brian on the Nile
Tomorrow morning we fly from Aswan back to Cairo.
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