Another unexpectedly delightful day in Egypt. We started with the un-fun task of travel, but it was all very comfortable and seamless for such a day. Taxi-airport-airport-taxi. We noticed that our plane looked like an AARP shuttle with an especially rowdy group of older women sitting in the back and cackling all the way to Abu Simbel. The age profile of the plane’s passengers fit into a theme we’ve both noticed -- there are few to no young, independent travelers here. But it all went off promptly and efficiently, and we landed in Abu Simbel right on time. We caught a taxi quickly and buzzed through the little town to our new lodging.
Our hotel was a completely unexpected delight. Here in Abu Simbel, we’re 20-some miles from the Sudanese border, and the hotel is a series of mud-built rooms with domed or barreled roofs. When we came in, we were greeting by guys in long robes and skullcaps, and they sat us down to a glass of hibiscus infusion while they took our passports to register us. The chef came out and guided us to a few decisions about lunch later, and we settled into a wonderfully relaxing day of Nubian tagine Nile perch to the sound of Nubian music. The music (and food) was far more African than Arabic, and we felt like we were, in fact, in Africa here.
Our plan was to hang all day, but events have a way of happening despite our plans, and we found ourselves with a project in the evening. We’d seen the debris of the wrecked tourism industry all over Egypt – a huge infrastructure that isn’t being used at all – and that’s apparently even reached Abu Simbel. The Sound and Light show at the magnificent temple of Ramses II here now operates like one of the intra-city minibuses: When there are enough people, it goes. The guy in charge of the show requires a minimum of 10 paid customers, so our hotel recruited us to join eight other travelers from other hotels for the show at the temple. We instantly hopped on the opportunity since there was no way to know if there would be eight other tourists another night, and we took a taxi to the temple at sunset.
We were the first tourists, and after waiting for the others awhile, the show manager let us go into the grounds until the others arrived…meaning we had the whole temple complex to ourselves. This was fabulous. The moon was full, the sky clear, and a wind kept Lake Nasser lapping at the shores. Lou and I wandered around the feet of the four colossi of Ramses II for a good half hour waiting for the others, awed by the grandeur of this 3000-year-old structure and savoring our unique opportunity to have it to ourselves.
It’s easy to imagine the full-throated melodrama of the show, but that’s why you go to these things, and the lights were as fun as the Richard-Burton-in-Cleopatra-quality voice work. We walked out of the complex with the moon reflecting off Lake Nasser onto the temple.
And back to our Nubian abode for some local Stella beer and baba ganoush.
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