Abuuuuu Simbel

Taking the train from Cairo to Aswan was interesting. Our train was decent and we were sitting in an area with a couple other travelelrs. I listened to the ipod until the juice ran dry and somehow fell asleep. My mom and I were sharing an opened sleeping bag, which I pulled all the way over my face to keep the bright flourescent light out of my eyes. Before I went to sleep a man behind us began playing annoying arabic music from his cellphone very loudly. After about a minute I spun around and flashed him a drity look and he stopped. When I woke up the next morning we were going by lush green land dotted with tall palm trees. It looked like a little slice of paradise. I then turned my head and on the other side was a stark baren desert. I tried to use my periferal vison and see the vast constrast between the too landscapes. One other thing that was quite interesting were these tiny tin decrepit shack that were situated on the tops of appartment buildings. They were think slabs of wood with tin thrown together to try to resemble a house. I didn't think that anyone lived in them and they were perhaps storage areas, then I saw a woman come out and by the way she was acting, I could tell it was her home. We don't think or imagine that people live under those conditions, but they do. Once wer arrived, we wernt into the tourist information office to find out about taking a bus to Abu Simbel. They were no help at all!! They would not tell us anything and gave us a brochure of Aswan, IN ITALIAN! The one thing i hate about Egypt is that you cannot trust anyone. Everyone seems to try to get all the money they can out of you. It's tiring to always have your guard up. Theother thing is that you don't want to be rude, but in a way you have to be. I miss our pleaseant nook in Wadi Rum, where we always get the right price. Well, after the tourist office we decided to look for a hotel. A tall man approached us very calmly and gave us the name of a hotel and if we wanted to check it out he could take us to it. HE approached us very calmly, so we followed him to the hotel. OUr room was 40 EGP (8$) per night for the three of us! What a deal! It was also a nice room. After we had setteled in we met with our tall friend, whose name was Jimmy Hendrix. We planned a trip to Abu Simbel with him and apparently got ripped off. He quoted us $80 USD per person for a feluca ride and we decided to think about it. We went out to grab some luncha nd all the prices were a lot highter than Cairo. The hasseling is a lot worse in Aswan than it is in Cairo as well, probably because there are more tourists in Aswan. Later, we were approached by another very tall man named Ayob, he was a felucca captain. We negotiated a much better price of $30 USD per person. Ayob is very charasmatic and has a great big smile. He speaks arabic, nubian, english, and japanese fluently! We hung out with him a lot during our stay in Aswan. One night my mom turned in early and I stayed out with Jessica and Ayob. I am constantly with my mom and it's good to get out on my own. We went into a room with a big group of people watching an Egyptian soccer game while we played pool against a really small 15 year old. It was fun but I decided to go home and take a shower because the later it got the more uncomfortable I felt. I was out with a 28 year old, and a 33, and me being 15, I'm always uncomfortable! ( :] ) Well, our first real day in Aswan we went in a giant convoy to Abu Simbel. If you don't know what a convoy is, it was set up by the Egyptian fovernment to keep tourist safe. It is certain times during the day when hundreds of tour busses and microbusses get together and are escourted by the police to the tourist sites. The funny thing is that I felt way more unsafe. We are a giant group of foreigners all clumped together. An easy target don't cha think? That is something funny about the middle east. Being a foreigner, you can't completely stay under the radar, it's something you have to cope with. (dressing like them is stupid looking, especially for the guys) However, in a tour group I think you are in a greater danger. You are in a huge bus, stay at the large tourist hotels, and are always sticking out as a larger thumb. I also found that the people respect you more if you are a traveler. They notice that you are not here just for the sights, but to also get af eel of the culture, and interacting with the people. They seem to appreciate and love meeting travelers, but they deal with tours to make money. Well, Abu simbel was incredible! We arrived just after the sunrise and I noticed that the sun went directly through the temple. I later read it was done on purpose. Abu Simbel is the site with two amazing temples that were originaly found completely covered in sand and left to be covered over again after an explorer found no real tresure inside. (LOSER) The temples were moved after the making of the dam. Even though there are swarms of people, the intense feeling of the place over rules all of the bad tourist mojo. What is extremely impressive in my eyes is that some med looked at a mountain and said, "Lets build a temple," then carved a whole bunch. They had to first carve into the mountain, then make the statues, then make rooms, then do all fo these incredible heiroglyphics! Bajeebus that's a lot of work! My favorite think about the temples were the pictures of the gods, especially the jackal. It is such a famous symbol of the ancient Egyptians, that seeing it in person stops my heart and brings me chills. I bet the Egyptian teenagers have a more interesting "homeland" history class than we do. (personally,I don't care about paul rever and all those other powder wig guys) We also went and visited the dam, which was well, a dam. Then we took a little felucca ride to an island with a temple that had been removed before they built the dam. That was incredible, but being in a shitty-ake mushrooms (I have family reading this =])convoy, I did not have enough time to explore. We went back to Aswan, chilled out, and got phsyched for our felucca ride!