The Nile! The Temples!

 

We arrived into Aswan yesterday early afternoon where we were to meet our cruise boat.  We spent a few frantic hours with our guide going to visit the high Aswan dam, the low Aswan dam, the “unfinished” obelisk and the Temple of Isis on the island of Philae.  Very rushed, but good things to see.   Aswan is Nubian by heritage, and looks much like what you would expect Africa to look like.  The Nubian people are black, with very fine features and an exotic look. 

The Temple of Isis represents the root chakra according to some, and is a place where Aga Khan came to be buried in the sand to cure his arthritis!  You have to take a boat to get there- making an agreement with the local boatmen, and he ferries you across to Elephantine Island, or Philae.   The temple itself has been reconstructed by the UN, after they rescued it from the rising waters of the Nile.  The temple was built around 200 BC and then rebuilt in the 1960s.

The ”unfinished obelisk” is just that, and massive obelisk that was destined for a temple and then when it cracked, it was abandoned.  It was in place in a pink Aswan granite quarry, apparently owned by the Goddess Hathesput.   You could see where many others had been quarried.

Today has been a magnificent day cruising on the Nile!   Our boat Anteres has only 35 state rooms, so a small crowd, mostly Japanese.  Another couple from California, very fun people, is with our same tour company.  The Nile is a really busy river, with over 500 cruise boats and a number of feluccas sailing, and rowboats and such.  There is a belt of green on each side of the river, with farms and a wide assortment of animals, like Nubian goats, camels, water buffalo, horses, cows and donkeys.  Just as in Cairo, the Sahara starts suddenly right behind it.  The Nile Valley is part of that same rift zone, so as a consequence there are abrupt mountains on either side of the flood plain.   People would wave to us – that was fun.   

Gene took a felucca ride this am.  We stopped at Kom Ombo temple, the navel chakra, built from about 200 BC to 400 AD (with many political interruptions).  The temple was dedicated to the crocodile god, and to healing.  Apparently at one time you could swim with crocodiles there to conquer your fears.  We then sailed to Edfu to view another temple.  The Edfu Temple is the best preserved of all of the Egyptian temples, dedicated to the god Horus.  There is a small room in the temple that was the laboratory- it had recipes for perfumes and incenses written on the walls in hieroglyphics, and many raised reliefs of Isis, her husband Osiris and Horus, their son.  If you don’t know the story, Isis’s twin brother Seth, in a fit of jealous rage, dismembered Osiris into 42 pieces and spread him out all over Egypt.  Isis flew around finding the pieces, and put him back together again long enough to be artificially inseminated by him, resulting in Horus.  

We have just passed though the Esna locks after a lovely Egyptian dinner where everyone wore traditional dress, and are sailing to Luxor to berth tonight.   Tomorrow will be a long day- meeting our guide at 7 am to do the east and west banks of Luxor, for our last day of sailing.  We fly to Cairo early on Monday, and then home on Tuesday.   Hard to believe we are reaching the end of this journey- assuming it will take months to process it all.   

Today we expolored the east and west banks of Luxor, a really incredible place.  We fly to Cairo early am tomorrow, and then I will have a bit of time to catch you up on the temples of Luxor- suffice it say that in Luxor are 50% of all the world's monuments!  Going to sleep now- love to everyone!