"We like the Nubian people" Crazyhippo's photos around Aswan, Egypt

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• published: 14 Dec 2010
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Preview of Crazyhippo's blog at TravelPod. Read the full blog here: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crazyhippo/1/1271599963/tpod.html This blog preview was made by TravelPod using the TripAdvisor™ TripWow slideshow creator. Entry from: Aswan, Egypt Entry Title: "We like the Nubian people!" Entry: "Arriving in the far south of Egypt's hot desert was incredibly refreshing despite the intense heat. Right after arriving at Abu Simbel airport, we immeditately realized that the Nubian people are quite different from the pushy Arabs in Cairo. While all the other passengers in the aeroplane were herded into the waiting buses to be shuttled to the temple of Abu Simbel for a one or two hour visit, we took the airport bus to our hotel. Since we were the only people on the plane to spend the night in Abu Simbel, the bus dropped us in front of our hotel: the Nubian House. Here the welcome was incredibly friendly, like arriving in a friend's house. The hotel is built in traditional Nubian style, based on many domes and arches built with mud bricks, which was so inviting that we decided to first spend a couple of ours relaxing in the shade. After a lunch in a little restaurant on the side of the road, Abu Simbel is very small with about 5,000 people, we walked in the direction of the temple in the midday heat. We decided not to visit the temple yet but buy a ticket for the light and sound show that would take place after sunset. Dying to swim somewhere we asked the locals whether is was safe to swim in the massive Lake Nasser. Not a good plan, too many crocodiles. We then found the perfect pool in a 1970s style hotel that must have been constructed right after the temple of Abu Simbel was moved to its current location in the 1960s. After a couple of hours of swimming and relaxing we headed to the temple for the show. Although this is obviously purely designed to take some money from the poor tourists, the show actually was quite nice. The storyline would have been suitable for a 5 year old, but the visual effects on the temple were worth the visit. Nevertheless, we decided that this would be our first and last sound and light show in Egypt, they do them at every single temple, pyramid or other site that could possibly attract a tourist. After a ride home from a friendly Nubian, we had the best dinner in Egypt on the terrace of the Nubian house. Beautiful setting, nice people, great food... we like Nubia! The next morning we woke up at 05.00 to be the first to visit the temple, well before the convoy of buses from Aswan starts to arrive around 07.30. It was truly amazing to visit these temples with no other tourists in sight. The two temples at Abu Simbel are decorated with fantastic statues and reliefs, and are probably the most beautiful thing we have seen in Egypt. If the bus loads of tourists coming from Aswan would not have arrived two hours later we could have spent the whole day gazing at the beauty of this site. Nevertheless, when the large hordes of tourists arrived at the temple we decided that is was time to leave to not spoil our beautiful memory of this place. At the end of the afternoon we arrived in Aswan, after a four hour local bus ride, another place we really like! We could have spent a lot more time in Aswan, but had less than two days to negotiate a felucca ride to Edfu and visit the Tombs of the Nobles. After finding a felucca captain and agreeing to have our private felucca, since we did not find any people who we would have liked to share a little boat with for four days, we crossed the Nile for a test ride to visit the Tombs of the Nobles. The nobles we granted the right to build their tombs in several places in Egypt by the Pharaoh. In Aswan, these tombs are cut out in the rocks on the other side of the Nile and have a beautiful view of the city and the desert dropping down into the Nile. We visited several tombs and were the only tourists around, exactly the way we like it! Back in Aswan we walked over the local market, ate on the street and ended the day with a beer on a boat on the Nile looking at the sunset, not too bad!" Read and see more at: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/crazyhippo/1/1271599963/tpod.html Photos from this trip: 1. "Lunch in Abu Simbel" 2. "Relaxing on the edge" 3. "Us, Abu Simbel and nobody else" 4. "Only 3000 years old" 5. "Anna likes them tall" 6. "Our beloved Nubian House" 7. "The Nubian House" 8. "Not sure about the local dress code..." 9. "We love Messi!" 10. "View from the Tombs of the Nobles" 11. "Inside the tomb" See this TripWow and more at http://tripwow.tripadvisor.com/tripwow/ta-00c0-0d98-c89d?ytv4=1