Egypt - Wonder of the Ancient World

The Nile in Egypt
It is the source of all civilisations which were
 and are on the banks of the Nile.

Egypt is the Nile and the Nile is Egypt. It is hot, beautiful, dusty, wondrous, loud and silent, all at the same time. The flooding and ebb of the Nile determined the season, it determined life itself. The rest is but desert, in places the desert begins on the banks of the Nile and in others just a little distance away. 

The pyramids, pharaohs and the sphinx are what Egypt is famous for. 

There are millions, nay trillions, of pictures of Egypt on the web, so I shall put up a few more, some are unusual and some taken with my mobile, but all are adding to these trillions. Though Egypt is famous for the Pyramids, the Pharaohs interred in them and the huge Sphinx, there is much more to its history, being the pivot between Europe on one side and Africa on the other, but this is not a historical treatise. 

A guide rests in the shade of the blocks of the pyramids.
Each block of stone in the pyramids are tens of tons and quarried from afar. It is wondrous as to how the ancients moved such huge blocks of stone, slave labour, ramps,
flooding of the Nile and many other methods have all been discussed.

As Egypt is the Nile, so for about half the time we were there we did a Nile cruise on the river, awestruck by the temples or tombs alongside. Though I must admit that I was templed-out at the end of it. 

Belly dancer on the cruise...

 

... and a whirling dancer.  Every night, of the three we were on the cruise,
there was a different entertainment. We attended only on the first night
where these two were performing. Of the other two nights
 one was a galabaia night and the other was a disco night.

At Aswan we saw the Aswan High and Old dams, the vast Lake Nasser spanning two countries, the Temple of Philae, and a Nubian village. 

That's a Nubian Village, old and new, with the Aswan High dam in the background.

In the Nubian village we were hosted to tea (for a fee of course),
 in a typical house.  The walls were very colourful and this painting is of the matriarch 
in her younger days

We drove about five hours from Aswan to Abu Simbel also located on Lake Nasser. It is  huge, ornate and re-located with UNESCO help (we were to hear this often). Since it was one of the early temples, we were awestruck by its magnificence. 

Hieroglyphics and galabaia at Abu Simbel

Then it was three nights on the cruise and a blur of temples and tombs on the way, Kom-Ombo dedicated to the Nile Crocodile god Sobek, Edfu, Valley of Kings and the tomb of Hatshepsut are some of the things we saw. All a dutiful must-see. 

On the way back from Abu Simbel we stopped at a dhaba and we also saw this
puncture-wala, so reminiscent of back home.

Flying to Cairo we saw the two major museums, and its then I realized that there is much more to Egypt’s history.  We had a day to spare so we went to the Citadel which was very different to what we had seen until now. A must see for military history buffs. It was a huge palace till recently, now housing the military and police museums.  It also has a very ornate mosque inside it.

The Statue of Salahdin, one of the greatest warriors. A wise and just ruler,
he was also cruel when he brought the crusaders to their knees

The ornate roof of the mosque at the citadel.

The mosque is interesting as it is a more ornate copy of the Blue Mosque in Turkey and, unlike most mosques, has a mausoleum in it. 

A beautiful caste-iron window at the mosque

The Citadel has a clock tower which has an curious tale.  The clock in the tower was obtained from the French in exchange for a huge obelisk from one of the temples. Originally two obelisks were to be sent but the French found one too cumbersome to move, so dropped the idea of the second. The clock worked for one day and then stopped, prompting our guide to say “it must be a made in China clock.”

The clock tower at the Citadel

The sun sets on the Nile 

Egypt is unique and  the history of the country goes back about 5000 years, the gods and pharaohs in their thousands, must have seemed very real in their day but are now only a chimera of history.