Today my tour officially started, and I went in a mini-van with about 8 other folks from various countries (I'm not sure yet if any of them will also be on the feluca boat trip starting tomorrow) to the nearby Aswan Dam (actually called the High Dam, which is the second dam built after the original Aswan Dam was deemed to be insufficient). It is a remarkable feat of human achievement; but other than that it pretty much just looked like a dam, with a decent view of a huge reservoir, Lake Nasser. Lake Nasser is the largest artifical lake in the world, but it doesn't actually hit you that way upon seeing it, as the vast majority of it is out of sight because it is so long, stretching for 300 miles. And it actually isn't very tall, so it isn't nearly as dramatic a sight as, for example, the Hoover Dam. So basically, not one of the more remarkable things I've seen, other than that you might as well check it out while you're here and get a nice view of the surrounding desert in the process.
After that, we went to the Philae Temple, located on a tiny island in Lake Nasser, and that was actually one of the most remarkeable things I've seen anywhere. I wasn't able to upload photos from the internet cafe where I'm at here in Aswan, so I'll provide a link (click the subject line above) to the Wikipedia page, and upload my pictures later. It was absolutely stunning, carved out of pure yellow-golden sandstone and covered with exquisite, classic Egyptian carvings on almost every surface. Words don't do it justice. It was also in a beautiful setting with weird, golden scattered rock formations littering the land across the lake from the islet that the temple was on. Although, where the temple now sits is a different location from where it was built. It was originally constructed at a lower site, but the contruction of the Aswan Dam in the mid-20th century would have flooded it, so it was dismantled piece by piece and moved to a higher island nearby.
After visiting those two sites, we got back just in time to go take some pictures of the sun setting over the Nile, which you can see right from the city of Aswan and is quite a sight. Then I walked down the main bazaar, and had dinner at a small, cheap restaurant where I'd also had dinner yesterday. I had an excellent dish of some kind of macaroni, and bread with some sort of spread on it, both of which were delicious. It's only 8 o'clock here now but I'm beat and thinking about hitting the sack early, so that hopefully, perhaps, there's the slight possibility that I might get up in time to get some sunrise photos for a change. But, I'm not counting on it. When it comes down to it, sleep is more important than photos.
Either way, I'll be checking out of my air-conditioned hotel, and meeting somewhere on the Nile tomorrow afternoon to step onto a feluca boat and start floating downstream for the next two days. I'm looking forward to just kicking back and watching the river flow. Maybe I'll even make some progress reading the book I brought, which I've only read four chapters of in the past three months. And just so you all know, although there are crocodiles (or maybe it's alligators) in Lake Nasser, there are none in the Nile itself, since apparently the Aswan Dam takes care of them (so to speak) if they happen to float that far downstream. Just in case you were wondering.
I'll most likely be writing next from the city of Luxor, to the north a few hours by bus, but downstream on the Nile. Luxor is packed with some of Egypt's most amazing ancient sites, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing them. Between the Great Pyramids and the Philae Temple, Egypt has already met my expectations of having the most captivating and mind-blowing historical monuments in the world, and there's still a lot more to see.
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