Christmas Break Part 2: Aswan

We arrived at Aswan around 7:00am and groggily stepped off of our train. This time however, we were four and not three. It turned out that the guy who'd used my travel guide, Ricardo, was a pretty cool guy and he decided he wanted to come with us. We shuffled out of the train station and we were immediately swarmed on by the flocks of taxi drivers yelling, "Give you good price, 20 LE", it should usually only cost 2 or 3. I replied, "No thanks," and we wandered into the city of Aswan.

Aswan is a pretty cool place. There is a variety of things to see and do. It sets right on the Nile and is a really gorgeous place, well in the touristy area at least. Most of all, there are a variety of inexpensive accommodating hostel type places to stay and that made our hunt for a launching pad nice.

We eventually ended up staying at a place called the Nubian Oases. The manager was really pushy with the tours and we eventually agreed with him for a price of 200 LE to go and see a series of things. The motel was interesting though. It was a motel of what I would describe as "having character". There were posters and pictures of Bob Marley all over the place and for the most part it had a Jamaican feel to it. It's humorous to me how they've got a bit of an infatuation with Bob Marley in Upper Egypt. I think it is mainly a way to appeal to the group of travelers who are interested in coming to Egypt and hitting up the hashish venue. I really have no idea if I'm right or not, but that is my educated guess.

Here's the stuff that we did in Aswan:

- We went on a felucca (20 foot sail boat) ride on the first day we were there. Our felucca "captain", Jamaica, was an interesting guy. He was crazy about talking about how much he loved to smoke and get high. He was so crazy about it that, while we were touring through the Tombs of the Nobles on the West Bank, he went and got high. He was really late to take us to our next stop. Obnoxious, but an interesting character all the same

-We went down to Abu Simbel. That was amazing! The immense size of the statues is invoking of awe and the backdrop of Lake Nasser behind it was unbeatable. Although, there were A LOT of people there...

-Next we went to the Aswan Dam. I will be honest with you that I was pretty disappointed by it. I'd seen so many pictures of the Hoover Dam before, but the Aswan Dam doesn't even compare. It is really wide and has a gradual slope all the way down. I wasn't too impressed, but I'm sure I would've been if I'd known more about engineering.

-After that we went to the Temple of Isis. This was probably one of my favorites the whole trip because it is on an island and you've got to take a ferry ride to get there. There are a lot less people there and you've got the time to "get the feel" of the place. The architecture was interesting because it is still really Egyptian, but has the Hellenistic influence all over the place and the two in combination make for a really great monument.

-Next we went to the Unfinished Obelisk. I'll be honest and say that this was by far the lamest thing we went to, but the day turned out great at the end because a guard was willing to let me hold his AK-47 and take some pictures for 10 LE. All I can say was that it was worth every penny :)!!

-Next we went to the Nubian Museum. That was pretty fun. I got the opportunity to take some pictures with some artifacts that will definitely not be allowed in the future, i.e. hugging a sarcophugus, holding a statue head, etc. The museum guards were really relaxed and were joking around with us, so it was a fun experience!

-Finally, the last thing we did was we went to Elephantine Island and explored the reconstructed ruins of Abu. It was a really fun experience not because there was "amazing" things to see, but we only saw four other people the whole time and so it kind of felt more like our own little exploration adventure.

As you can tell, we did a lot in Aswan. It was a great time!