Riding Again

Well, my motorbike finally caught-up with me here in Aswan Egypt after a week of waiting... Actually I think the bike came in a couple of days ago but Kamal chose not to tell me... When we went to get it through customs etc yesterday, the bike was the only remaining cargo on the barge and the barge was no longer at the dock...it was tied up at the back of a bunch of empty barges waiting around.
But whatever the case, the bike is now successfully through all beaurocratic processes (customs, Carne, new plates and insurance) and I can ride again :)

 

 

 

Ill note the details of the transfer here since Ill forget otherwise, but at each end the cost was about US$150 making a total of about $300 and one week to get into Egypt... That's about 5-6 times the cost of any other border!

Fixer for Aswan side is Kamal :
kamalaswanegy@yahoo.com ph 002 (0) 1005322669

Fixer for Wadi Halfa side is Mazar :
mazarhalfa@gmail.com ph 00249 (0) 12238740

Fixer in Khartoum is Midhat:
midhat@tour-sudan.com ph 00249 (0) 912253484
...midhat is really usefull for example for getting a carne in Sudan that is valid for Egypt... its way cheaper there than anywhere else!

All these guys are great... reliable, reasonably priced, good communicators, very friendly and extremely well-connected.

... Now Im headed for Luxor and then a couple moor days break looking at the Egyptian stuff! :)

Philae

Another large temple site that was saved from the rising waters of the dam was the island of Philae... It was located above the original dam and for about 50 years was subject to partial inundation every year... and as they raised the dam height (which they did two or three times over the years) it became at least partially permanently under water... But the new dam was going to drown it completely so they built a new island and moved the temples... I say that so matter of factly but again its an impressive engineering feat!

The island had been a "sacred site" for many thousands of years and there are various "epochs" of temples and archaeological remains on the island.
A bunch of pictures:

Approaching the new island of Philae.

Damage caused by decades of partial submersion after the first dam was built.

 

There were vultures exactly like these lining the roofs of both the temples at Abu Simbel too.

The winged sun disc... Ra

Beautiful detail on this column

The large rock is from an earlier epoch and they built the newer temple over it.

Loads of perfectly preserved hieroglyphics.

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing detail... 3000 years old or more.

The female figures never get to wear clothing but the male ones always seem to have the royal skirt?

 

Defaced figures again.

In a more recent Christian phase of the area, many of the figures were very deliberately defaced

 by a group of Christians seeking to gain favour with someone???... Bummer!

Defacing focused on the head, the fore-arms and the feet??

 

The eye of Horus... powerful totem.

Bowtie joints keep the stone blocks in exact alignment over the centuries... these joints are still in common use today for quality carpentry of table-tops and the like!

 

 

Its hard to believe that all this detailed stone-work is about 3000 years old!