Egypt day 2

What I didn't put in the last post is my little freak out on the boat when we first arrived.  I am blaming the fact that I was so hot, tired, and thirsty, but if you are in a country that you cannot drink the water out of the tap, and you are on a ship, the only way to get water is to buy it! I was out of my mind crazy when I found out we needed to pay 3 dollars a bottle of water, and it adds up with a group of 6.  After being out that first day in scorching heat, came on to the ship and could not wait to have large amounts of water with my lunch.  Not so.  After lunch, I went up to talk to the manager to get it straightened out.  Between our language barriers, and the fact I was a woman it was impossible.  He told me that no where in Africa will we get free water, I then told him we just spent a week in Tanzania where we never paid for water.  Soda yes, but not water.  He looked disgusted.  I don't know if it was the fact a woman was talking to him the way I was or what but I was not a happy camper.  Our guide pulled me away after a few minutes and told me he would help me get cheaper water off the boat.  I was grateful, but that's not the point.  Water is a necessity we didn't have.  It's like giving someone a free buffet but making them pay for the plate.  Later that evening we had a meeting with our guide and he kept giving me a look out of the corner of his eye.  I don't think he knew how to take me after that.  I was fine after a shower and a nap, and we were buddies after that.

The next morning we headed off to the Unfinished Obelisk.  The unfinished obelisk is the largest known ancient obelisk.  The obelisk's creators began to carve it directly out of bedrock, but cracks appeared in the granite and the project was abandoned. Originally it was thought that the stone had an undetected flaw but it is also possible that the quarrying process allowed the cracking to develop by releasing the stress. The bottom side of the obelisk is still attached to the bedrock. The unfinished obelisk offers unusual insights into ancient Egyptian stone-working techniques, with marks from workers' tools still clearly visible as well as ocher-colored lines marking where they were working.

 

The workers would take rock, (forgot the name now) and use it to carve stone into shapes by grinding it with arm power.  My kids gave up after 2 min.

How they got the obelisk out was pretty impressive.  They would fill this hole with a large piece of wood.  Then fill it with water.  The wood expands and lifts the obelisk up.

 

This is the Aswan High dam.  Second largest dam in the world.  The dam provides 99 % of the electricity to Egypt.  The Egyptians like to say it's nearly indestructible, I would not want to put it to the test.  Saddam Hussein Threatened to destroy it.  Never did.  If the dam did fail, the largest man made lake sits on the other side, Lake Nasser, and would cover the entire country of Egypt in 6 hours, and would continue on to other surrounding countries.

This was our ride to the Temple of Philae.

 

Philae Island is famous for the legend of Isis and Osiris
This is a great story regarding this temple, if you want to know more you can look it up.
A lot of the symbols we saw at this temple were repeated in other temples we would see throughout our trip. 

You can see the Greek influence in the columns here.

 

This was the hieroglyph for Cleopatra.

 

 

Aboard our ship finally setting sail. Even being outside with the boat moving, the heat was stifling.