Nile Cruise Part 1 (Aswan)

The tour company that we booked the cruise through (Maestro Tours) gave us our own private tour guide as part of the price. We really lucked out! Our tour guide had a Masters degree in Tourism and a Masters in Egyptology. We got the impression that we did tour guiding as a means of making extra money in between his various archeology projects. He told us about the various sites in Luxor at the Valley of the Nobles that he was previously and currently working on. It seems that projects tend to go full force until the money runs out and then it comes to a standstill. Then sponsors fund the next project and so on. So there seem to be a lot of unfinished excavations everywhere that ran out of funding.

Aswan Dam

Anyway, our first day of the cruise was to see more of Aswan. We visited Aswan High Dam first. This dam created the enormous Lake Nasser which spans an area from Aswan all the way south passed the Sudan border. Lake Nasser is one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. It is approximately 480 km long!

Philae Temple

Next, we went to Philae temple. You have to take a boat over to the island where this temple is located. funnily enough, our hotel was very close to this boat dock so we could see these boats ferrying tourists back and forth from our balconies. Philae temple is dedicated to Isis. This temple was flooded when the first dam was built and it was relocated to this island in the 1960s.

Unfinished Obelisk

Our final stop in Aswan was the Unfinished Obelisk. This was the main quarry in Egypt where all the obelisks were built. A crack occurred in one of the obelisks ordered by Queen Hetscheput so it was abandoned. These were all carved by hand using these black rocks to pick away at the granite.

Cruise Ship

After seeing these sites, we boarded our cruise ship. The cruise had buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner and a show at night.