I am sitting next to the picture window of my stateroom watching the Nile go by on our way from Aswan to Luxor in Egypt. It is 900 pm local time so I see mainly the lights on shore and other cruise ships motoring past us in the opposite direction. The desert night is cool after a warm day. Across from the town of Aswan is a hill with ancient caves cut into the rock that is artfully lighted creating a spectacular view. The ship is four decks topped by an open air lounge area and swimming pool.
Today we got a wake up call at 2:00 am. After coffee and a box breakfast we boarded a bus for the airport to catch a 5:00 am flight from Cairo to Aswan. * (We are passing under a bridge with lighted suspension cables similar to the new one that crosses the Charles river in Boston. It looks something like an Egyptian headdress. It seems like every few minutes another lighted cruise ship passes us in the other direction. ) While on a major freeway driving toward the airport our bus stopped. Numerous attempts to get it restarted failed but another bus arrived and we transferred luggage and people from one to another. We made the airport, were rushed through security and made the one hour flight to Aswan.
On leaving the airport we crossed and viewed the Aswan high dam built by Russians at the request of Nasser. The Americans refused to build it at the time but the original Russian turbines have been replaced by more efficient American ones. This dam provides 80% of the electricity used in Egypt. The next stop was the temple of Isis that like Abu Simbel was rescued from the rising waters of lake Nasser. This large edifice was dissembled and moved to a nearby island. This temple has the classic form of two large pylons in front with additional pylons decreasing in size to the holy of holies.
We next drove to the gigantic unfinished stella resting in it's granite quarry and heard about the ancient techniques used to remove such large structures from the living rock. (The line of cruise ships passing us has ceased. It seems that they travel in herds). After the granite quary we drove along the Nile to Aswan and to our ship. They park three abreast with connections through the center of each ship so we enter one ship next to the dock and then keep going from ship to ship until we reach our vessel. After a couple of hours of free time that included a walk around town and some rest we had a talk on the area from a Yale Ph.D. Egyptologist who is accompanying us on this part of the trip. She is an excellent speaker and provides much human color to the history.
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