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

Day 3: Sailing over the Tropic of Cancer

The first leg of our cruise

This was a relaxing day as we sailed for 10 hours, with no excursions. We had to enjoy ourselves on the upper deck around the pool with a good book. At 12.30 the ship horn announced that we crossed the Tropic of Cancer, which was celebrated with a cocktail at the bar. On our way we noticed that very nice red dragonflies surrounded the ship, which were not shy to be photographed.

Red dragonfly

The Kasr Ibrim docked at an Island at sunset. From that position we could see the temple of Wadi el Seboua (valley of the lions in Arabic), which was planned to be visited tomorrow morning followed by the temples of Dakka and Meharakka.

Day 2: Kalabsha

We used the morning to have refreshing swim in the hotel pool. At twelve we had to check in at our cruise ship the Kasr Ibrim. The Kasr Ibrim was docked in the Sadd al Ali port on Lake Nasser near the High Dam. Many Sudanese were waiting here for the regular ferry boat to Wadi Halfa in Sudan. We boarded and checked in our room. Everything on board up to the smallest details was beautifully decorated in 1930s Art Deco style. We had lunch on board and in the afternoon our guide took is in a small motorboat to the island where the temples of Kalabsha and Beit Al Wali and the Kiosk of Kertassi are now located. All these where moved from their original location by a UNESCO organised consortium in the 60s,when the High Dam was build and the rising water treatened these temples.

The Temple of Kalabsha, Beit al Wali and the Kiosk of Kertassi on the Lake Nasser Island

Kalabsha
The temple of Kalabsha was built in the late Ptolemaic period and finished by emperor Augustus between 30 BC and 14 AD. It is dedicated to the Egyptian-Nubian composite god Horus-Mandulis and to Isis and Osiris. The a hypostyle hall leads to the inner sanctuary has beautiful reliefs. A nice detail is are the empty cartouches, left blank because it was not clear at the time which pharaoh was ruling.

The God Mandulis and the empty cartouches

Kiosk of Kertassi and prehistoric rockart
The Kiosk of Kertassi is a relatively small feature with two nice Hathor columns.

The kiosk of Kertassi

Near the kiosk are also some rock slabs with prehistoric rock carvings that were salvaged from the same, now submerged, site. Interestingly, these carvings were very similar to some of the rock art we saw earlier in the Gilf Kebir.

prehistoric rockart

Beit al Wali
The temple of Beit Al Wali (= house of the holy man in Arabic) was originally build by Ramses II and dedicated to Amun-Ra. On the walls there are fine reliefs. Interestingly, one shows Ramses taking his enemies by their hair and smashing their heads.

Ramses II takes his enemies by their hair

All sites on the island were very impressive, even more so when you consider that all off them have been dismantled block by block, moved and rebuild.

Day 1: Aswan

Our route through Aswan

Tombs of the Nobles
A slow start after the late night makes a relaxing morning. We are set out to see the sights we missed the previous time in Aswan. We walked down the hill to the Nile boulevard to find a ferry to Qubbet Al Hawa. We are clearly back in a tourism hot spot as many people try to sell us things. Some things we would even be interested in buying if they were not so annoying and persistent. We ignored them and walked on. Jurriaan discovered he forgot his hat and scarf, and at 39 degrees with a burning sun, we were quick to buy a new one. The ferry brought us over to Qubbet al Hawa on the westbank for a few pounds. Here, there are tombs of nobleman (governors and other officials under the reign of Pepi II, who lived 2278-2184BC) hewn out of the cliffside.

Tombs of the nobles hewn out of the westbank cliffs

Some of the tombs had nice reliefs and the whole setting was beautiful with the panoramic view on the Nile. Also build on this cliffside location, in between these graves, is and old Coptic church.

Murals on the ruins of the Coptic Church

Elephantine Island’s Nilometers
Back at the bank of the Nile we negociated with a boatman to bring us to the Nilometers on Elephantine island. When we arrived on the island we brought a ticket for the museum and ruins of Abu, where the Nilometres are situated. We were so hot that we needed a drink. In the cool shadow of the museum, one of the guards offered to make us some tea. We offered him a nice baksheesh and everybody was happy. The museum actually had some nice artifacts and sarcophagi. We walked on to the Nile bank to check out the Nilometres. These were used for thousands of years to read of the level of the Nile and to announce to the rest of the country if a flood was coming. The Aswan dams have ended this. From the Elephantine Nile bank you a nice view on the Nile with is Fellucas passing by and the iconic Old cataract hotel on the other side.

One of the Nilometres on Elephantine Island

Elephantine Island’s Ruins of Abu
The Nilometres are on an archeological site known as the ruins of Abu. There are several nicely restored temples here. The Satet Temple was build by Hatshepsut of the 18th dynasty and is dedicated to the goddess Satis. The temple of Khnum was build in the Old Kingdom and modified and used over 1500 years, before being substantially enlarged in Ptolemaic times.

A Hathor Column in the Temple of Khnum

The heat of the day made us drowsy and thirsty and close to the exit of the ruins site we found a nice Nubian café with cold cola’s and shade. The café was decorated with stuffed crocodiles, and as we discovered later, two living crocodiles in a large aquarium without water (poor buggers). Refreshed we walked to the ferry docks to go back to the hotel. On the way we saw a weaver weaving colourful shawls. While we were watching him, and thinking about buying one, the weaver offered us to have a go on his weaving device. We had a bit of fun trying, but it was more difficult than we thought. We bought a nice shawl and took the ferry back to the hotel.

Corine weaving...

Start of our Kasr Ibrim Journey

We took a the late evening flight Cairo-Aswan. We arrived late at the Basma hotel Aswan. But it is a warm night, so a good time for sipping a beer with Nile view. We had one day in Aswan tomorrow for sightseeing and then our cruise on Lake Nasser will start.

Our Kasr Ibrim Cruise route on Google Earth