Mons Claudianus

On our way from Al Gouna to Luxor we had to join the compulsory convoy with police escort at 9 am at the Safaga checkpoint. We tried in our best Arabic to convince the police that we could drive to Luxor alone, but they did not give in. Them we asked them if we could see Mons Claudianus, a famous mountain with a Roman quarry and fortress complex, about 15 km off road in the Eastern desert. The police was very accommodating and we got the permission, we only had to take a police agent in the car for when we would leave the convoy. We are normally not very keen on having police in your car, but we really liked to see Mons Claudianus and we found it difficult to refuse.

The mountains around Mons Claudianus on Google Earth. The red line in the bottom right is the Safaga to Qena road. The line from the bottom right to the upper left is our off road track to Mons Claudianus.

We drove off with the convoy and we left the road after about 40 km. At a small roadside cafe we picked up a local guide to show us the way. It was not that easy to find, so we were glad we had our guide.

An overview of the fortress

At the side, there was a fortress and the desert floor was full off broken pottery and pieces of quarried granite. You still could see many pieces with the original holes for the wooden wedges. Romans and Egyptian used a technique where they would hammer wooden wedges in a row of small holes they cut in the rock. By poring water on the wedges the wood would expand and break the rock. We had seen similar holes at the quarry of the broken Obelisk in Aswan.

A pillar base with the markings of the wooden wedge technique

The landscape here is beautiful, but very remote and desolate. Roman prisoners were used to hack the granite out of the mountains and it was a hardship post for the Roman soldiers who guarded them. The enormous granite blocks and pillars quarried here were transported over 180 km of desert and mountains to Qena, where they were put on boats and shipped to Rome and other places. The walls of the fortress and houses of the complex were made up of irregular pieces of granite that where probably not good enough to be shipped to Rome.

Corine at the door of one of the Roman houses made of quarried leftovers

A short car drive further we saw an enormous broken pillar, probably left where it was broken 2000 years ago.

Jurriaan tries to lift the 2000 year old broken pillar

Our guide showed us some old water wells where Bedouins were filling up their water tanks, after which he led us back to the main Safaga-Qena road. We dropped him at the cafe and continued our journey to the Nile. We had a tea and lunch break with our police officer at a small roadside cafe just before the checkpoint about half way between Safaga and Qena. When we continued our journey our police officer asked us to drop him off at the checkpoint and we could continue our drive to Luxor alone. We were very happy, but we still do not understand why the convoy is compulsory for foreigners if this police agent let us off so easily. Anyway, we had our freedom back for the rest of the day!

On the way we saw many mini buses with ornamental leaves on their roof rack, sometimes combined with white flags and big loudspeakers. We learned later that these buses were returning pilgrims from the Haj. The pilgrims take the boat back from Jeddah to Safaga, and then continue their journey with buses across the eastern desert. We had never seen this in Cairo around the time of the Haj. Apparently, it is tradition in Upper Egypt to recite Quran verses through the loudspeakers and to carry the leaves and white flags.

Pilgrims returning from the Hajj

Qalaat al Gindi

Towards the end of the year it turned out that Jurriaan's work offshore had progressed better than expected and that we could take a few weeks holiday around Eid al Adha, Christmas and New Year. We decided to start with five days surfing at Moon Beach, followed by Christmas at Al Gouna, New Year in Luxor, and driving back to Cairo along the Nile. More on the rest of this trip later.

We borrowed wet suits from friends, as it can get a bit nippy in the Gulf of Suez in December. One day the weather was bad for beach and surfing: no wind, no sun and the occasional drizzle, so we decided to explore the Sinai. We went to Qalaat al Gindi, the ruins of the 12th century Fortress of Salah ad-Din or Saladin, built in strategic location where three caravan routes converge. The fortress was originally built to protect pilgrims making their haj from Africa to Mecca and trade caravans from Africa to Asia. Saladin had planned to use the fortress as a base to launch attacks on the crusaders who had reached Jerusalem at the time. However, Saladin managed to chase the crusaders out of Jerusalem before the fortress was finished.

Qalaat al Gindi on Google Earth

We knew about it through a website of a colleague, who had left Egypt before we arrived. This is actually the second attempt to go to Qalaat al Gindi. In February 2007 we went also, but is was rainy and the paths were too slippery to go up safely. This time it was dry (only just), and we climbed up the steep route (bottom middle on the Google Earth picture).

panorama shot of Qalaat al Gindi

When we reached the top of the plateau there were more ruins to see than we expected. We saw some old Arabic texts cut in rock.

old Arabic text above a window arch

Even though it was not such a clear day we had beautiful views all around from this strategic location. Most of the walls and some large vaulted rooms are still standing.

Corine enjoying the view on the impressive outer wall

We walked around the outer walls to get a good feel for the scale of the complex.

Jurriaan walking around the the northwestern wall of the complex

The next day the weather was sunny and windy again and we enjoyed the last surfing of the year.

Howling wind at the Gulf of Suez

During the Eid al Fitr holiday (end of Ramadan) we went three days to Moon Beach. The wind was really strong, but after a full season of practice we can now surf with a harness in this wind! We are regular guests now at the moon beach surf centre.

Surfcentre

Corine on the plane

Jurriaan on the plane





Jurriaan off the plane (and the board!)

Corine off the plane (and the board!)

Windsurfing is really exciting in this wind and we hope to go at least one more weekend before the winter season starts. We still have not mastered waterstarting. We took a lesson and we made progress - even an occasional lucky succesfull attempt -, but we need a lot more pratice!

The view from our roof on El-Khartum Street

View from our roof...

Tonight we took this picture. It was by chance. Our satellite reception had broken down a couple of weeks ago, and Farouk and Samir were trying to repair this. The dish is on the roof and there Farouk showed us proudly "his" madrassa (the French school opposite our house, where he works) as well as the view to the mosque near us (to the right and in front) and "Qasr El-Baron" or Baron Palace (left in the back).

Baron Palace was the former residence of Baron Empain, the man who "built" Heliopolis, in the beginning of last century. It was built in 1910 and resembles the Cambodian temples of Angkor Wat. With the celebration of 100 years Heliopolis, it was open to the public for one month. The land beside it is turned into a garden and at night the Palace is beautifully lit. We visited it in the month that it was open to the public last year. All built in concrete, it does have its charm and forms a special landmark.

We soon will post some pics of the villa (and neighbourhood) we are so lucky to live in while we are in Egypt. It was built in 1927 in Baron Empain "style" and we are near the old centre of Heliopolis, called Korba.

Dune driving with Hein and Noel

Last weekend we went to the desert around Fayoum, to camp at out most favourite campsite at an oasis in a beautiful dune field. Hein en Noel are visiting us from the US and indicated that they liked our desert camping proposal. So this was a good opportunity for Ramses (our Landrover) to show them a bit of Egyptian desert. Paul, Petra, Fenna and David joined us in their Prado.

Sunset in the dune near our campsite (left to right Jurriaan, Corine, Hein & Noel)

On the second day weather turned out to be very hot (46C!) and windy, so it is like having 10 hairdryers at maximum power around you when you walk outside. Luckily we did not get stuck in the sand so severily that a lot of digging was involved, so most of the time we could stay in the shade of our car. On the way we saw a WWII petrol can, and when we lifted it from the sand we saw our first wild scorpion in Egypt.

Wild Scorpion

We will post more pictures soon. Paul and Petra have put a nice collection of pictures on their website already.

Felucca

On Hein and Noel's second day in Cairo we organised to sail on the Nile at sunset with a group of friends. Traffic was remarkably quiet, so we arrived early at the jetty in Ma'aadi. No matter how busy, noisy or polluted it is in Cairo, as soon as you sail on the Nile the atmosphere becomes tranquil and relaxing...

Hein, Noel and our sailor

Moonbeach

Already our third weekend at moonbeach this season. We met several of our moonbeach friends: Mike, Adina, Thor, John. The previous weekend we had no wind. This weekend we had too much wind for us beginner windsurfers. But the experienced surfers were very happy. So instead we snorkeled, read books, celebrated Mike's birthday and took spectacular photo's of the advanced windsurfers.

Action shot of Mike

A short trip to Dahab in the Sinai

Wednesday 25 April is Sinai Day in Egypt, a bank holiday. So we decided to take the Thursday off as well and go to the Sinai for a long weekend. It is more than a year ago we were in Dahab for the last time (before the bombing of 24 April 2006, when 22 people died in a terrorist attack). There are two dives we liked to do in Dahab that we had on our list for a while, which had not happened yet: The Canyon and The Blue hole. Moreover, we wanted to visit the Coloured Canyon, a famous site in the Sinai desert.

The reason we do not go so often to Dahab is that it is a long drive (about 6-7 hours). Previous time we drove though the southern tip of the Sinai via Sharm el Sheikh or via Saint Catherine. This time we decided to try to faster northern route via Taba, close to the Israeli border.

We arrived in time to watch the sunset from our hotel balcony with a chilled glass of white wine. A good start of the holiday!

The next day we wanted to buy fins to complete our snorkel gear, get signed in at the dive centre and get the dive equipment fitted for tomorrow and do some snorkeling with our underwater camera!


The site where we snorkeled was recommended to us by two dive centres. It is called the Islands, because of the coral pinnacles. Just when we got in, still swimming above the reef we were greeted by a beautiful purple jellyfish.

Purple jellyfish

We continued towards the reef drop-off where a masked pufferfish swam up through the cracks. We were happy with our new fins, that had more propulsion power than the rental fins we usually have.

Masked pufferfish

We swam over one of the pinnacle reefs, but closer to the deep water the temperature became a bit chilly. Just in front of us three cornetfishes passed.

Cornetfish

We started to swim back to warm up and close to the reef edge, a beautiful lionfish swam underneath us.

Lionfish

The next day we met our dive guide early we thought. But Egyptian summer time started for the first day, and this had taken our guide by surprise. So we left late to the Canyon. At the site it turned out that we arrived passed the rush hour as many dive groups from Sharm where just coming out of the water. So we had the canyon for ourselves (we had to wait a few minutes at the entrance at about 20m depth, until all divers had left. We descended down to 30m metres and enjoyed how hundreds off dusky sweepers (a cave fish) where circling around us. From there we swam out though a narrow tunnel to the edge of the reef table to continue the shallow part of the dive along the reef. We saw a lot of of reef life, but we did not take the camera this time.

The Canyon

We had lunch at the Blue Hole, while we were waiting till the dive groups from Sharm finished. The Blue Hole is a very deep (110m) circular hole in the reef. Our dive started north of this hole at “the Bells” where we descended through a crack in the reef and swam out through an arch at 26m. We swam along the reef south while slowly ascending to the saddle at 7m that leads to the Blue Hole. On the way a big school of Fusiliers, with black-tipped fins, passed us. Thoughout the dive we had to watch our depth meters as there was no bottom below us. The Blue Hole is infamous for this, and quite a few divers have died here when they tried to go too deep, or when they panicked from not seeing a bottom.

The Blue Hole

On the last day we drove back to Cairo, but not before we did a offroad detour the the Coloured Canyon, famous for its coloured rock formations. The offroad drive is at least as beautiful as the canyon itself.

The Coloured Canyon

The Road to the Canyon

Day 5: Abu Simbel

Kasr Ibrim meets Kasr Ibrim
Kasr Ibrim (Ibrim’s fortress in Arabic) is the only Nubian structure that is still in its original location. Although the waters of Lake Nasser did not reach its location on a 70m high cliff, it is very close and masks the original strategic location. The condition of the mud brick walls is so poor that we were not allowed to get off the boat and walk around there, but Kasr Ibrim the ship did sail very close to Kasr Ibrim the fortress for us to have a look. Apart from the structure that is still visible many written documents were found here.

Kasr Ibrim as seen from Kasr Ibrim

After this short stop we continued our journey to Abu Simbel. On our way he had a view of the water inlet for the New Valley irrigation project at Toshka on the west bank. This project is heralded by the Egyptian government to provide water and agricultural land for future generations. Currently, it has not proved to be working (yet?).

Our route on to Abu Simbel on Google Earth

Towards midday we started seeing the contours of the magnificent temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel. As we got closer also the smaller temple of Nefertari started to become visible. We were very happy with our new camera with 200mm zoom lens to see this from such a large distance. We had lunch on board next to the temple and in the afternoon when the crowds that arrived by the bus and planeloads had left we went for our excursion.

The Ramses temple from Lake Nasser

Abu Simbel

Google Earth image of the Ramses and Nefertari temples in Abu Simbel

We walked around the artificial hill that hosts the temples since their move in the 60s to arrive in front of the temple that Ramses II build for his favourite wife Nefertari. At first sight this looks like a very altruistic project of megalomaniac Ramses II. He even build the 10m high statues of Nefertari, in front of the temple, at the same height as his own statues, and not like most temples only at knee height of his own statue. However, Ramses being Ramses, made sure that the temple dedicated to his wife is fronted with four of his own statues and only two of Nefertari.

The Nefertari temple fronted with gigantic statues

The temple is hewn out of a cliff face and is dedicated to Goddess Hathor. In the hypostyle hall there are six pillars crowned with Hathor capitals and the walls show beautiful reliefs of Nefertari before Hathor and Mut. Some of these reliefs depict Ramses fighting gloriously with Nefertari and Hathor in the background supporting him.

Unfortunately, after many tourist violating the “no flash” signs (flashlight damages the paint), it is now forbidden altogether to make photographs inside the temples.

If you thought the Nefertari temple had big statues, the Ramses II temple has four (actually three and a half) ginormous statues. These sitting statues are 20m high and these were cut in to 30 ton (!) pieces when moved during the UNESCO project in the 60s. One statue was already broken into pieces during an earthquake in ancient times. We could not see any sign of the rock cuts of the move. The statues were half covered in sand when this temple was first rediscovered in 1813. You can still see the 19th century graffiti high on the statues. The faces of the statues seem to look through time and must have been very impressive when foreigners entered the pharaonic land along the Nile from the south (actually they still are).

On the walls of the base of these four massive statues, Libyan, Syrian and Nubian prisoners of war, trophies of Ramses’ wars, are depicted. You can see nicely the foreign features of these captives.

Nubian prisoners

Syrian prisoners

Inside the hypostyle hall with eight columns fronted by Ramses statues, the walls show the battle of Kadesh in Syria, in such detail that it is like reading a film script. The scenes show a fortified Hittite town surrounded by the Orontes River and the Egyptian army camp. Another wall shows Ramses trampling his enemies.

We looked at all the details of these scenes and we were lucky that we were with just the two of us in this world-class cultural heritage site. Very special considering how busy it usually is here.

In the inner sanctuary, there are statues of Amon-Ra, Ra-Harakhty, Ptah and Ramses II. Two times a year, on 22 February and on 22 October, the morning sun shines its light exactly though the column corridor onto all statues except Ptah.

That evening we had a candlelight dinner on the outside deck of the Kasr Ibrim, with views on the lit temples.

11 April
We left the Kasr Ibrim at 0545 AM to see the sunrise on the Abu Simbel temples. The warm morning light made the colour of the temples look golden. We were lucky to be there just before the crowds arrived.

The Temple of Ramses II in the morning

Day 4: Five temples and a Tomb

Google Earth image with the Temples of Wadi El Seboua, Dakka and Meharakka

Temple of Wadi el Seboua
All temples at this site were moved by UNESCO from their original, now submerged, location. Wadi El Seboua was the first temple we visited. It was a nice temple with an avenue of 10 sphinxes on the approach to its first pylon. The oldest part of the temple was build by Amenhoteb III (1390-1352 BC). During year 35-50 of the reign of Ramses II (1279-1213 BC) the temple was enlarged en restored and the typical Ramses II megalomaniac statues and sphinxes were added. The sanctuary showed nice engravings and a niche with the destroyed statues of Amon-Ra, Ra-Harakhty and Ramses II himself.

Avenue of sphinxes

Colossal Ramses statues

Engravings in the sanctuary of the temple of Wadi el Seboua

Temple of Dakka

Temple of Dakka with its 12m-high pylon

The temple of Dakka (ancient Egyptian Pselqet) is a smaller temple and was build over time by several ancient rulers like Ptolemy IV Philopator, Ptolemy VIII Euergentes II, the Nubian king Arqamani (218-200 BC), and roman emperors Augustus and Tiberius.
The temple is dedicated to Thoth, god of wisdom, usually depicted as a human with an ibis head.

Engraving with Thoth, God of wisdom in the middle

Here the UNESCO moving operation let to the discovery of an earlier Horus temple built by Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III.

Temple of Meharakka
The smallest temple we saw on this site was the temple of Meharakka, which was build under Roman rule. The temple was not finished, but is special because it has the only spiral staircase in any ancient Egyptian structure. It was dedicated to Serapis, the Alexandrian god. This god was introduced in Egypt in Ptolemaic times, and is a fusion of the Egyptian Gods Osiris and Apis and the Greek gods Zeus and Aesculape.

The columns of the unfinished temple of Meharakka

On the beach small motorboats were waiting for us to bring us back to the Kasr Ibrim. We sailed further south along Lake Nasser, to our last stop for the day, near the temples of Amada, Derr and the tomb of Penout. We enjoyed the weather (43C!) on the upper deck with a breeze and a swimming pool to cool off in.

Google Earth image of the route of the Kasr Ibrim from Wadi el Seboua to Amada

At about three o’clock the Kasr Ibrim docked again, and we were ready for the next excursion. A small motorboat took us to the beach were there was the site of two temples and a tomb.

Google Earth image of the site of the temples of Amada and Derr and the tomb of Penout

Temple of Amada
The temple of Amada was build by Thutmosis III and Amenhotep II (18th dynasty) in honour of the Gods Amon-Ra and Ra-Harakhty. Seti I and Ramses II have carried out minor restorations to this temple and added decorations. This is the oldest temple on Lake Nasser’s shores. In the inner part of the temple are beautiful murals. Unfortunately the generators at this site had ran out diesel, so the innermost parts of the temples were pith dark, apart from the small light bundle from the guide’s torch.

The temple of Amada

Inside the temple there is an interesting hieroglyphic text dating from the 3rd year of Amenhotep’s reign (1424BC). It describes the victorious military campaign into Asia: ”His Majesty returned in joy to his father Amon after he had slain with his own mace the seven chiefs in the district of Takhesy (in Syria), who were then hung upside down from the prow of the boat of His Majesty”.

Hieroglyphic text of Amenhotep's victory, note the upside down chief in the middle.

This temple was for a long time partly buried in sand and Bedouins have left carvings of camels and horses high on the walls (then much lower because of the sand).

Late Bedouin rock carvings in the temple of Amada

The murals posed a problem for the UNESCO temple movers in the 60s. The French were responsible for this temple, but they could not dismantle it without damaging the murals. So they did not dismantle it but they reinforced the temple and build a triple railroad track under the temple. On these tracks the temple was moved in one piece over 40km in six months. Because of the remoteness it was difficult to build a complete 40 km track. In stead they build short track and after track length they dismantled the track behind and rebuild it in front of the temple.

Temple of Derr
Unlike the other temples on Lake Nasser, the Nubian rock-cut temple of Derr was located originally on the east bank of the river (now moved west), probably because the river makes an unnatural bend. The plan of the temple resembles that of the temple of Ramses II in Abu Simbel and shows scenes of Ramses II worshipped as a living god. Like in Abu Simbel, the inner sanctuary shows damaged statues of Ra-Harakhty, Amon-Ra, Ptah and Ramses himself. The statues were damaged when the Christians used the temple later as church.

Inside the temple of Derr

Beautiful wall paintings in the temple of Derr

Tomb of Penout
Penout was a governor of Lower Nubia during the reign of Ramses IV (12th century BC). He was probably Nubian as in the Egyptian tradition people were buried in the land where they were born. The rock cut tomb is decorated with wall paintings depicting scenes of Penout’s life. Unfortunately many were damaged when peoples tried to steal some of these decorations.

Wall paintings in the tomb of Penout

After this last temple of the day we walked back to the Lake Nasser beach, where we saw hundreds of dragonflies. This time we did not only see the red and blue varieties, but also one with black wing tips.

Dragonfly with black patches on its wings