Egypt Day 5: Abu Simbel

After breakfast we headed to the airport so we could fly to Abu Simbel and then on to Cairo. Apparently the road to Abu Simbel is so deadly, flying in just to visit the site then flying back out was our best option. In the airport, Jess gave her report on inscriptions at Abu Simbel.

Outside the site, I got some more pictures of flowers.

After the Pyramids and King Tut's treasure at the Cairo Museum, Abu Simbel was what I was most excited to see in Egypt. I think I actually giggled in excitement as we rounded the corner and I could see the heads of the giant statues of the Great temple (dedicated to Amun and Ramses II) over the hill.

The baboons up top

He's got graffiti on his legs, too!

No photography was allowed inside the temples, sadly. The sculptures inside were amazing, floor-to-ceiling depictions of gods, battle, and hieroglyphs.

The Small temple (dedicated to Hathor and Nefertari) was almost as magnificent as the Great temple.

On the way out of the site, there's an exhibit showing the process of moving these monumental temples out of the path of the Nile River when the Aswan Dam was constructed. I can't even imagine planning and enacting such a task!

It took a very long time to get our bags at the Cairo Airport so it was pretty late when we got to the hotel. A few of us decided to get a quick McDonald's dinner just down the street from the hotel.

I was hoping they'd have a King Tut burger, but no such luck. On the walk back to the hotel, two (then three) little girls attacked us. We gave them all the money we had in our pockets and still they wouldn't leave us alone. They physically latched onto Willah. At one point, one of the girls stole Willah's McDonald's bag from her which her younger brother Joseph managed to twist out of the girl's hands. When I tried to detach one of the girls from around Willah's waist, she punched me. It was awful. They cried at us like we were killing them because we wouldn't give them our dinner. So depressing but also irritating. We'd given them enough money to get their own McDonald's dinner!