Abu Simbel

Note: i have similar entries of this post in my old blog in friendster also titled flip-flops and backpack and in our group Salitype Society.

Abu Simbel - lies 280 kilometers away from Aswan, from the North of Sudanese border it is only 40 kilometers away. It was early in the morning when we reached Abu Simbel. We already booked for the trip in our hotel in Aswan. We are about 20 persons who made the trip, and after picking- up the all the tourists from different hotels, we finally go and drive through the desert to Abu Simbel.

Pharaoh Ramses II ruled for a long time and built a lot of monuments and temples which are still exist. On the 60's in the last century, German archeologists and engineers move the whole temple to it's present site. So it will be not under the water level of this new artificial lakes, created by the big dam of river Nile. So, we and other millions of people can still see and enjoy the sight of this magnificent temple and statues of Pharaoh Ramses II. The temple was found by chance by the Swiss Johann Ludwig Burckhardt on May 22, 1813. And the Italian Giovanni Battista Belzoni found out the upper part of a door way and the main entrance on August 1, 1871.




TEMPLE OF HATHOR - still in Abu Simbel, the smaller temple dedicated to Queen Nefertari Ramses II's beloved wife. In this temple the statues of Queen Nefertari is surprisingly equal to Ramses' statues, which is not usual because most of the statues and bas relief we saw in Egypt the wife of the Pharaohs' are small and at the back of the pharaoh holding his knees.

Our trip continues still in Aswan, after visiting Abu Simbel we went straight to Aswan Dam. I will never forget this experience, seeing these magnificent statues of Pharaoh Ramses II.