Days 414-421: Upper Egypt
Edfu, Kom Ombo, Aswan, Abu Simbel, Abydos, Dendara, and a bit more Luxor
Loads of ancient sights and the dreaded Egyptian police convoy.
We left Luxor in our first police convoy. The presumed goal of the convoy is to keep everybody safe, but we have to say that we’ve rarely felt more like a target. The police insist that all tourists in Upper Egypt travel in a convoy, unless they’re on a train. We wanted to see the temples at Edfu and Kom Ombo en route to Aswan, so we opted for a transport tour and the convoy.
Now, when we think of a police convoy, it conjures up images from Hollywood. Armed guards. Bulletproof glass. Varied schedules. Decoys. But in reality, it puts a bunch of tourists on the road at the same time, same place, everyday, usually with no weapons or real protection.
Our first convoy required us to be on our minivan by 6.30am so we could then sit around the police station, with other minivans full of tourists, until the convoy left at 7.30am (as it does every day). The first and last vehicle in the convoy were trucks full of heavily armed men. Each minivan (there were six) also had an armed cop riding shotgun (of course). As we left Luxor the lead vehicle ran its siren – ostensibly to get traffic ahead to pull over. But it felt like the sirens were saying “here comes the convoy!” Less than an hour after leaving Luxor the convoy pulled over and we all sat like ducks in a shooting range for 20 minutes until a new set of cops came out and took over the positions of riding shotgun in the minivans. Off again, and a half-hour later we made it to Edfu. The tour companies all said we had 1.5 hours at the site, but the cops were in charge and told us to be back in less than an hour. So we made a quick tour of the Ptolemaic temple.
The great pylons at Edfu’s temple.
The Ptolemaic temples pictured the gods with great hats.
All the tourists were back in their minivans on-time as instructed. But the shotgun cops, however, didn’t show up for another half hour. We took off, but this time there was no lead truck (or tail truck) with armed men. The convoy got so stretched out that it could hardly be called such. But we did have our shotgun cop asleep in the front for our safety.
Richly decorated columns at Kom Ombo.
One of our favorite gods has to be Sobek – the crocodile god worshiped at Kom Ombo. There were even croc mummies here.
Yet again the cops told us to be back in a short period of time and then proceded to delay us for an extra half hour. A short tour but at least it was neat. Note to future travelers: the convoy won’t leave without you. So take as much time as you want. At least we arrived in Aswan early in the day.
In Aswan we settled into a cheap hotel with a great Nile view. Aswan is a bit of an armpit with every shop trying to rip you off, cops at every intersection, and felucca touts filling the streets and trying to get you on their boats ad nauseam. Feluccas on the Nile just waiting for tourists.
Ok, we admit it. We did spend an hour riding a felucca near sunset on our last evening in Aswan. What can we say? At least we didn’t go with one of the guys harassing tourists about it on the street. Nice and relaxing way to see the Nile.
Neat Nubian mud-brick tombs at the Fatimid Cemetary in Aswan.
The lush Nile at Aswan off Elephantine Island with the parched desert nearby. There were ibis all over the riverbanks.
Elephantine Island was the most pleasant place to walk in all of Aswan. It was pleasantly shady and we could hear ourselves think it was so peaceful. We visited the ruins of Abu on the island and it made us appreciate how great the ruins of the rest of Egypt were.
We also visited the island temple of Philae which had been moved to a new island as Lake Nasser filled up. Fortunately for us, we hooked up with a Mexican family and were able to share their boat to and from the island (and their tour guide’s company treated). Great folks and we haven’t met a lot of travelers from Mexico on our trip, so it was very neat to talk with them. The temple had great papyrus columns and reliefs showing animals and dwarves playing musical instruments.
The pylon at Philae shows Ptolemy XII smiting his enemies. Note the serious ass-kicking going on in the bottom-left.
From Aswan we took a very early day trip to Abu Simbel. The weird thing about this trip is that because of the convoy restriction, everyone leaves at exactly the same ungodly 3:30am, takes about the same time to get there, gets the same 2 hours at the sight, and gets back at the same time. But the cost of the trip varied from $10 to more than $100 depending on where you asked.
This police convoy did not have armed cops riding shotgun, and fell apart almost instantly. The cars drove without their headlights on and drafted off each other (think Days of Thunder) to try to save on gas. Insanity! And not an armed person in sight. But we did get pleanty of time at the sight.
We loved Abu Simbel. We were incredibly impressed with the engineering feat of moving the entire temple complex while the waters of Lake Nasser were rising. The temple of Ramses II with its four colossi overlooking the Nile must have been quite intimidating to Nubians sailing down river.
The enormous quartet of Ramses II colossi overlooking Lake Nasser at Abu Simbel.
Marc sits in for the fallen Ramses at Abu Simbel.
This smaller temple at Abu Simbel is dedicated to Hathor – the godess of love – and Ramses II’s favorite wife, Nefertari (not to be confused with Nefertiti of Berlin bust fame). This is one of the few times that a woman is pictured as large as Ramses, rather than coming up to his knee cap. To make up for it, Ramses had four out of the six colossi out front showing him as well as scenes of him smiting his enemies inside. Nice touch for a temple dedicated to “love”.
We visited the train station to buy tickets back to Luxor and the line was long and unmoving. Eventually the fellow in front of us told us something we’d read in the guidebook, but were hesistant to employ. He said that Kelly could get both of our tickets far faster than we or Marcus could. As a woman, Kelly was permitted to go directly to the front of the line. Grumbling about gender inequalities Kelly headed to the front and got the tickets in no time. Guess being a women has at least one advantage in the Middle East.
Right outside the train station was a Egyptian-style pizza place. We ordered the sweet fruit-and-nut pizza. It came with coconut, pistachios, peanuts, pineapple, and even a few cherries on top. It was great but stunningly sweet.
Compared to the convoy, the three hour train ride from Aswan to Luxor was a piece of cake.
With no other choice to see the sights of Abydos and Dendara, we took our third police convoy. This was a “real” police convoy. There were two minivans, containing a grand total of three tourists (two of which were us) and we had two police trucks full of armed cops with sirens blaring. People stared and waved as we passed and we felt like foreign dignitaries. The sirens and radios kept the streets clear, so we made great time too. They gave us all the time we needed at the sights, but it was weird to be at Abydos and have ten soliders escorting us three tourists through the town. There were men armed in SWAT type gear surrounding the site of Abydos – facing away from the site to protect us from the “ne’er-do-well locals”. Right.
The temple of Abydos had lots of color inside and we had the place to ourselves.
Abydos had a Gallery of Kings which listed the cartouches of all the pharaohs before Seti I. Notably abscent were the cartouches of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut and the heretic Akenaten.
Neat light shafts in Abydos’ hypostyle hall.
As we were leaving Abydos a fellow walked by with a tray of pitas. Marcus tried to buy some from him, but he ran away. Maybe the SWAT team scared him off. The cops chased down another pita-guy for us, and we had some very fresh (still warm) pitas – best in the country.
Dendara has a temple of Hathor with huge hathor headed columns. Well, it did until the Christians chisled them off. We have seen a lot of reliefs in Egypt, and not once have we seen people “walking like an Egyptian”.
Dendara had a lot of astronomical-themed reliefs.
The back wall at Dendara. Yeah, those are lion-headed water spouts for the one day a year that it actually rains. The guy is a “temple guardian” which pretty much means he just asks every tourist for backsheesh. These guys are everywhere.
Chissled off gods at Dendara. Note that the cartouches have no symbols. Aparently leadership was changing rapidly and the stonemasons didn’t want to commit.
Nice man-skirt with scenes of the pharaoh smiting enemies.
We are pretty sure they were just making stuff up for heiroglyphics by the Ptolemaic era. “Kid sitting on head, rope with three knots, equal sign, leg?”
We got stuck in Luxor for a couple extra days waiting for the train to Cairo. Have to say there is no worse country to be in when your Visa card gets “blocked” for security. Can’t make collect calls and the max phone card would only last a couple minutes to the States. We were incredibly lucky that they believed who we were when we tried to convince them by email that all of our weird overseas purchases were legit.
Marc tips back a cool Stella to his helpful Old Man while gazing over the Nile in Luxor. Sweet.
Horse-drawn carriages were all over Luxor. You could tell it got hot because you could see horse shoe prints embedded in the melted asphalt roads.
Our favorite roadside felafel stand in Luxor gave Kelly a lesson. The big pot in the background is full of fuul.
As we left Luxor to catch our overnight train to Cairo, we found ourselves shaking hands and saying goodbye to a surprising number of locals. From the guy selling drinks to the felafel dudes. We found Luxor to be an incredibly friendly place and quite the opposite of its reputation as the “hassle capitol of Egypt”.
Tags: Egypt
Kelly & Marcus
June 14th, 2006 at 6:02 am
This Stella’s for you, Bud! Sweet!
June 14th, 2006 at 7:18 am
Sure glad I learn about these things after the fact! BTW those “hats” you referred to at the Ptolenaic Temple were really the “Unified” crown worn after Upper & Lower Egypt were unified – the kids in the SS classes have to draw the 3 crowns on their final test 🙂 (One looks like a bowling pin,another like a chair with a feather, and unified combines them both – bowling pin in a chair with a feather.)
June 14th, 2006 at 7:40 am
I can’t wait to go on an Egyptian convoy…where do I sign up?
June 14th, 2006 at 6:19 pm
I agree, the convoys sound more like target lines! Glad you guys made it through safely. Thanks for sharing.
June 14th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
Ahh, I could tell that was Marcus by the cool sunglases!
June 15th, 2006 at 5:46 pm
Marcus:
Who taught you to pour a beer?!?! You’re probably still sitting on that terrace waiting for the foam to subside. Wow…
JR
June 17th, 2006 at 5:01 am
For the record, it took great restraint not to step the waiter aside as he poured that beer.
June 20th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
OK. That’s good to hear. This is a public blog and I didn’t want our good family name defamed by such actions…
JR