Egypt

After the struggle of sailing up the Northern half of the Red sea against strong headwinds, it was wonderful to be met by Sue at El Gouna and for the two of us to take a tour on the Nile. Our trip started at Aswan where this mighty dam holds back the waters of the Nile to form a lake that is 500kms long

During the five days we were on the Nile we saw some of the hundreds of ancient sights that make Egypt such a fascinating country to visit. Our first visit was to the Temple of Philae, which was rescued from its site on the cataract between the old and new Aswan dams. After the building of the first dam it was partially flooded but when the new dam was constructed it was moved to a new site 150 meters from its original position and re-built

Very early the next morning we left the boat to catch a plane to Abu Simbel where the most amazing project was launched to rescue this temple, complete with the ‘mountain’ from which it was carved, from the rising waters of the Nasser Lake. The whole salvage operation succeeded in re-building the temples above the lake and in exactly the same orientation as the original……

….This means that as the sun rises, on two days of the year, the suns rays penetrate right in to the sanctuary of the temple and illuminate two of the figures seated there. We were at the temple about five days before the first date and so as we watched the sunrise the rays went well into the temple but did not quite reach the inner sanctuary, but a sight we will remember forever

Later on, after getting back to the boat in time for breakfast, we took a small boat trip with our guide and among the sights he pointed out was the Cataract Hotel where Agitha Christie wrote her ‘Murder on the Nile’

I was also able to take a trip on one of the local sailing boats that ply the river, originally as trading and fishing boats but now almost exclusively used to take tourists for boat rides. I took the helm and found that the boats actually sail extremely well, tacking to windward with the simplest of sail controls but need a huge and very heavy tiller!

Most of our travelling on the Nile was in darkness (quite a feat as there are no navigation marks and sand banks everywhere) so that we arrived at the places to visit during daylight. Looking back you can see another boat similar to the one we were on and the scenery along the banks of the river

It was a stunning sight to wake up and look out of our cabin as the sun rose from behind the fringing palm trees. This was the view from our bed, something else we will never forget

On a trip where superlatives were the norm, perhaps our most memorable moments were when we took a balloon trip high over the Valley of the Kings at Luxor…

…The views were fabulous and here is a view of the temple of  Al-Bahari, that you’ll not find in the guide books. This temple was built for Queen Hatshepsut  (more easily remembered as ‘hat cheap suit’ or even ‘hot chicken soup’!)

Then it was on to the most famous of the Upper Nile Temples in Luxor itself. Here is part of the Sphinx Avenue that runs from the Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple. At the moment this is all that can be seen because the rest of the Avenue is under the city, but a hugely ambitious project is under way to remove the buildings and roads and excavate the ground to re-instate the Avenue in its entirety

Finally we visited Karnak Temple about which, many hundreds of books have been written, with countless thousands of photographs. I took many more and here is a shot of the truly amazing ‘hypostyle’ hall where 134 columns stand 23 meters high

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