| A Trip On The Nile |
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I am just back from a trip down the river Nile in Egypt. For long I had been fascinated by the Egyptian civilization and the culture. I got an opportunity to view the most famous places of tourist attraction in all of Egypt and along the Nile River. I believe that it was an amazing experience that you can get only by seeing especially since I was already interested in Egyptology. Still I will describe for you in brief the salient details.
The trip I participated in was sponsored by Coles and Granger Expeditions through the aegis of Destiny Voyages. The boat in which the tour took place was named the Hadeel, a dahabiyya (also known as dahabeah) vessel having private ownership. The next day after arriving in Cairo by flight, our tour guide took us to visit Memphis and Sakarra. Memphis in the Old Kingdom was the power center for about 3000 years. We saw the Sphinx of Memphis and the statue of Ramses II there and the Step Pyramid at Sakarra. The latter is the oldest of Egypt's 97 pyramids. Next we saw the famous Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx. These structures were built in approximately 4600 B.C. by the 4th Dynasty rulers in Egypt. They are the still standing almost intact oldest man-made structures in the world. The subsequent day we spent in the Museum of Antiquities in Cairo. There we got to see the iconic mask of Tutankhamun, the Egyptian boy king and various Egyptian antique items, artifacts, and mummies too. The next day we took a flight to Luxor the starting point for our trip on the Hadeel down the Nile. We visited temples at both Karnak and Luxor on the East bank of the river and saw the historical ruins there. The day after we spent our first day on the boat Hadeel and also explored the tourist places situated on the West bank of the Nile. On this side of the Nile is situated the Valley of the Kings. Here lie buried King Tutankhamun, Queen Hapshepsut, Seti I, Ramses II and other Pharaohs. The Hadeel next sailed southward over the Nile passing the locks at Esna towards Edfu. We enjoyed the visual scenery and the unending traffic on the river and enjoyed the hospitality. On the way to Edfu we passed El-Kab (also known as Nekheb) an ancient Egyptian settlement, once the Upper Egypt capital. Edfu of course is rather well known the world over for the Temple of Horus the Egyptian God in the shape of a bird. It was constructed somewhere in 3rd century B.C. and is one of Egypt's largest temples besides the one at Karnak. The next day started with a visit to the temple of Sobek (crocodile god) at Kom Ombo. Our final destination was Aswan on the Nile, where a dam has been built in the modern age. Nearby is the Temple of Philae dedicated to the Goddess Isis. The last stop of our journey was the Museum at Nubian and the Temple at Abu Simbel. Related Articles
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