Upriver to Aswan
Friday–Saturday October 18–19, 2002
The Greeks took over Egypt and built Edfu, about 60 miles upriver from Luxor. We took a horse cart to the temple there. Above, the large Temple of Horus (a god with the body of a falcon) was finished in 57 BC.
En route to the city of Aswan, we also visited the temple at Kom Ombo and the temple of Khnum at Esna.
Aswan is just downriver from a cataract that restricts navigation. We left our boat and visited the Temple of Philae, which sits on an island in the reservoir created by the British dam, built in 1902. The water level would rise each year and flood the temple, not a good thing. UNESCO and the Egyptian government worked to move the entire temple to higher ground, and it was opened in 1980.
Aswan is more than 400 miles from the Mediterranean Sea. The scenery is one of cloudless skies, the river and the desert.
We moved south on our boat and after leaving Kom Ombo, then embarked at Aswan to view the temple at Philae. We were supposed to ride in one of the local sail boats, known as a feluca, but with no wind we had to opt for a boat with an engine and propeller. Philae is a Unesco World Heritage site.
Next—a flight over Lake Nasser to Abu Simbel, near the border with Sudan.
