Day 12 - Abu Simbel

We left our ship this morning at 5:45 to catch a short 30 minute flight to Abu Simbel. We only had to arrive to the airport within 30 minutes of our flight and things went off on time. The plane was very nice and we didn’t even have to pay to use the bathroom!


When we arrived at the Abu Simbel airport we expected there to be a guide to take us to the temple site and show us around. However, there was no one there. After looking around for awhile, we found some other guide who was nice enough to direct us to a bus that could take us to the site. Of course, we were a bit annoyed that no one met us and that we would have to buy our own tickets inside the site, but everything worked out okay. Our tour includes access to all of the sites so we will have to figure out how to get reimbursed for our tickets later.

The Great Temple of Abu Simbel was built to honor Ramses II and dedicated to the patron deities of Egypt’s great cities - Amun of Thebes, Ptah of Memphis and Ra-Harakhty of Heliopolis. The temple is 108 feet high with four colossal enthroned statues of Rames II and was intended to impress and frighten.

There is a smaller temple at Abu Simbel that was built by Ramses II to honor his favorite wife, Nefertari. The main thing here was to note that Nefertari was shown as the same size as her husband. This showed that he had a great deal of love and respect for her.

With the building of the dam and the creation of Lake Nasser, the temples at Abu Simbel were quickly being drowned by the lake. The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) jumped in to help save the temples. They were cut from the mountain and moved above their original position.

The hours are from 6am until 8pm or later, depending on the flight schedules.

We were able to find the number of our bus and headed back to the airport for our short flight back to Aswan. We are now staying one more night at a hotel called the Basma Hotel. Tomorrow we head back to Luxor.