More pictures from the ship

 

 

 

 

 

They don't build roofs on their houses.  They leave them unfinished with the thought that when a son gets married him and his wife will build the next floor.

Swimming hole.  If you notice there are no women anywhere.  Until we got to Cairo we saw very few.

getting ready to go through the locks

 

Egypt day 3

Day four consisted of going to the Kom Ombo temple at night. I wasn't sold on seeing a temple at night, but it was spectacular to see!  the way it was lighted up was amazing. 
This is why you don't wait to blog about a trip nine months ago, I don't remember so much about it and now I have to go look up things on the Internet about the different temples. I do know this temple was built to worship crocodiles.  In ancient times they worshiped things they loved and things they feared. 

The faces on the carved men above have crocodile heads. 

This is a well that before the damn was built on the Nile river would decide how much tax would be taken.  If the well was low they taxed less, as the crops would be fewer.  If the well was full they would tax more since the farming was good that season.  The well had a few feet of nasty water/trash at the bottom.

At the crocodile museum they showed different mummified crocs. they even mummified the eggs and baby crocs.

 

 

the next morning bright and early we went to Edfu. It's the temple for Horus, the falcon headed god.  This is the second largest temple after Karnack.  It is also the best preserved temple.
Of course there is a story that goes with this temple too.

 

 

Our guide showing us they were counting to a million.

 

 

photos from the ship

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The story behind the next few pictures is this.  Two guys on a row boat attached themselves to our ship, risking life and limb all for getting the first chance at selling souvenirs.  Because their picture was taken they were about to get on the boat for a "tip".  Something like this would have never happened in America.  No laws, no police to enforce any of the non-laws (it's a word right?) .
These guys were the first of many who tried to sell things to the tourists as we got closer to the canal.
The people who sell souvenirs are just about as low as you can get in the food chain.  Egyptian who have legitimate jobs can't stand them either.  They make going places awful.  Instead of being able to look at things you are rushing as fast a you can though market places.  They bombard you if you don't walk fast enough, and with that there is a chance of getting robbed.

My dad is a kind man.  That being said, he was a huge target.  He wanted to help everyone, and stop and talk when spoken too, which always led to buying junk if he was not watched over by Jesse or I. One trick was to get you to hold something and not take it back. I may have set thing down on the ground for my dad, or made someone take it back.  I have no problem being rude to those who are rude to me.  Almost anything you find at a souvenir place is fake.

 

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.