October 4, 2018 – Aswan Dam and Abu Simbel

Today we visited the granite quarries where Egyptian obelisks were mined.

Next was one of the wonders of the modern world – the Aswan Dam.  Funded by the USSR in the 1960’s, impending flooding of ancient structures under what would become Lake Nasser resulted in one of the engineering feats of modern time.

Then on to the Aswan airport to fly to Abu Simbel.  This magnificent structure, built by Ramses II around 1250 BC, was rescued from the impending flooding.  It had originally been carved out of a mountain. It was cut into pieces and moved about 300 meters to it’s present location.

We flew back to Aswan and went on a felucca, a traditional Nile saleboat for a cruise past the Aga Khan Mausoleum to Kitchener’s Island.

We then returned to the boat and spent our last night on the boat