Flight to Cairo, Abu Simbel and Aswan

Stained glass window in the hotel in Cairo

Swimming complex in Cairo hotel

Taxi! Yohh!

Shopping complex in Cairo

Sunrise from the plane on the way to Abu Simbel

Temple in honour of RamsesII. There are 4 statues out the front, all of him. We were not allowed to take photos inside. This temple is designed so that 2 days a year, his birthday and coronation day, at sunrise the sun falls on his statue in the room inside the temple.

The 2nd statue from the left is missing the torso and the head which were shaken loose in a n earthquake and now lie in this position at the foot of the statue.

This is Nefertari's temple. She is the only Queen of Egypt to have a temple built for her. It has 2 statues of her and 4 of Ramses. He really couldn't help himself.

A gr8 shot of both temples

Pool at the hotel in Aswan

The blog will cover 2 days tonight. Heaps of frustration with the wifi which is working for 2 guys in the bar but not for me.

So I have come to use the hotel computer which costs 35 Egypt pounds an hour. Thankfully that is only about $8nzd.

So flight to Cairo yesterday was good. Up at 6am. Unfortunately we were back in the noisey hotel in Istanbul and also had asian/indian people in the room next to us who yelled and coughed until after midnight then started again at 4.50am. Kevin then hammered on the wall which bought 60 sec silence.

When we arrived in Cairo I thought someone from the tour would be there to meet us and because that didn't happen we were surrounded by taxi drivers inside the terminal. The hotel was close by but too hard to walk so we did get a taxi. Afternoon was free. We went to the shopping mall. Amazing. Overwhelming really I bought 2 scarves that took 2 hours. We came out at 6pm to find it was dark. Taxis queue up and the one at the front gets the next client. Unfortunately the one at the front was a total heap of junk. Photo attached. kev said NO but this created a huge drama so we just crossed our fingers. Back to hotel safely, we have video of this trip, it is worse than France, Italy and Turkey!!

Up at 3am today for our flight to Abu Simbel. When we got to the airport two guys (thought they were airport staff) got us a trolley, grabbed our bags, wheeled the trolley, showed us how to get through the scanners (which we knew) and then we had to pay them for it. Tourist suckers

The hotel gave us 2 huge breakfast boxes, most of which we couldn't eat due to avoiding the tunmmy bugs. Had an apple and knife and bread and jam. Threw out heaps of lovely filled rolls etc.

Flight Cairo to Aswan about 1 and half hours, stayed on plane for half hour at Aswan then 40 mins to abu simbel. Was an airbus 320. So much for my worries about a puddle jumper! I took my relaxing pill and was asleep when we arrived in Aswan and slept again on flights to and from Abu Simbel. Then I had a snozze in hotel this arvo, so did Kev.

No words to describe Abu Simbel. Built by Ramses II basically to honour himself and he also built a smaller temple to honour his wife Nefertati. Smaller being relative. Both these temples were moved 600metres higher in 1964 to avoid them being immersed when the Aswan dam was built. This amazing achievement took 4 years and cost USD85 billion. Funded by UNESCO.

So a sleep this arvo, a swim in the pool for me (28 deg here) and off for dinner soon. Tomorrow we start the Nile cruise. Getting picked up at 11 so a sleep in planned. Then 3 days on the Nile then flight from Luxor to Cairo.

We are both well, fingers crossed that will continue. I am paranoid about what I eat and drink here.
Have more funny stories to add to the toilet blog that Kev is going to write before we get home. They want payment for everything here. There is a lady in the toilet who hands you toilet paper and expects payment.

The hawkers at Abu Simbel were the worst we've seen. Such a shame. Security huge. Machine guns and scanners everywhere.