Preparing for our trip to Egypt, Heidi and Lee began checking the weather daily a couple of weeks before we left. Luxor was always warmer than Cairo; Aswan was warmest of all. (Of course, the sun was ALWAYS shining!)
Furthermore, Aswan stood on the map very close to the southern Egyptian border with Sudan. It was as far south as one could sail on the Nile River. Not surprisingly, then, we assumed Aswan would be a real desert outpost, a backwater oasis on the edge of nowhere in particular, a dusty little town with little to recommend it.
As we drifted "upriver" on the Nile, these initial assumptions seemed to be correct: Luxor was much smaller and more provincial than Cairo; Edfu, smaller still; and Kom Ombu, smallest of all.
Imagine our surprise when we found ourselves in a thriving, prosperous, quite modern city of half a million people!
Our hotel is marvelously situated on a hillside overlooking the city center and the Nile with its lovely long riverside promenade. Today we had lunch at the Aswan Moon, a open-air, floating restaurant on the river right downtown cooled by a nice breeze and overlooking a falucca-filled section of the riverfront.
We also drove out to visit the Aswan High Dam constructed in the 1960s with Soviet aid this morning.
We were then were ferried over to a small island housing the rescued Temple of Philae rescued (together with more than twenty other ancient archeological treasures) from Lake Nasser's rising waters.
Many of them are Nubian, original inhabitants of much of the land now submerged by the waters behind the High Dam. Early this evening we learned a bit more about their history and culture at the Nubian Museum across from the hotel.
Of all the places we've been here in Egypt, Lee thinks he wouldn't mind returning here someday -- just to relax in the desert sun!Ir doesn't hurt at all that the city is also home to some of the world's best perfumes and the very best Egyptian cotton ...
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