Catch up time - Trips to Abu Simbal

I have been busy making my website for the photos I have been selling at the Bazaars.  I had numerous requests for a website from them and from work now that there are some photos up there I wanted to get round to it and recently have made the effort.  Now about 90% complete and should finish and go live in the next week or so.

Whilst doing this I have been selecting images from Iphoto and realised I had blogged about the fishing trip to Lake Nasser previously but not our little side jaunt to Abu Simbal, one of the "must see places" in the world.   Heres our story.......

Gentlemen, start your engines

We decided to drive in one of the convoys from Aswan instead of flying.  There is an early one (ca. 3am - so you can be at the temples without being baked to death in summer) and a later one, which we took (11am - ok for winter).  The convoys are for "protection", some trouble in the past apparently and a general distrust of being close to the Sudanese border.

We arrived at the Unfinished Obelisk at 10:50am along with a number of other private minbuses and the odd tour bus.   A few armed egyptian police were there.

Security nearly manages to lose a few toes

Dictionary definitions

Race:  An event where everyone starts at the same time, goes as fast as they can and gets to a finishing n point as fast as possible.

Convoy in Egypt: An event where everyone starts at the same time, goes as fast as they can and gets to a finishing n point as fast as possible.

As soon as we left at 11.15am it was pedal to the metal, no apparent sign of a convoy except we were all going in the same direction......

Saw some good mirages as we cross the rocky desert and some major civil workings called Toskhia? which apparently was Mubaraks major project that would bring him fame of bringing life to the desert....one for later perhaps.

Thermal inversion in the desert- a mirage.  The black basalts reflected

Rameses II & Horus

Entrance

Ramesis II x two

That man again

Spot the joins where they cut the sandstone and moved it 

3 hours later we arrived in Abu Simbal, about 5th in the "convoy".  The monument was moved when the Aswan Dam flooded the lake.  It is pretty awe-inspiring in terms of scale.  The remarkable thing for me was the stunning heiroglyphs which I was not allowed to take photos of (photos not allowed in side).  Spent a few hours wandering round, and then made the long journey back.  A long day but a major site ticked off from our Egyptian list.

 

The Queens tomb