{"id":1698,"date":"2023-11-12T07:06:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-12T07:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/?p=1698"},"modified":"2024-12-09T04:14:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T04:14:08","slug":"a-good-dam-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sarahanderictraveltheworld.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/12\/a-good-dam-day\/","title":{"rendered":"A Good Dam Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Activity level: \ud83c\udf36\ufe0f\ud83c\udf36\ufe0f\ud83c\udf36\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modes of transportation: \ud83d\udea2\ud83d\udc5f\ud83d\ude90\ud83d\udee5\ufe0f<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first stop of the day was the high dam, which was built in the 1960s and powers much of Egypt. It\u2019s pretty massive, and created Lake Nassar, which is the largest man made lake in the world. It was pretty tight security because we were at the high point of Egypt, and if that dam broke, it would flood much of the population (Lake Nassar would drain down the Nile we assume, on top of the energy concerns).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dam!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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World\u2019s largest man-made lake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Next, we drove and took a small boat to Philae Temple, also a Ptolemaic temple from around 220 BC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the ancient Egyptian religion, they, similarly to Cain and Abel, had two brothers where one murdered the other. Seth (which, interestingly, is the name of the third brother of Cain and Abel) killed Osiris and split his body into 14 parts, which he spread around Egypt. Apparently, his \u201cmanhood\u201d ended up here in Philae, so there are a lot of menhood inscriptions around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We also learned that the ancient inscribers used grids to draw the writings. For animals, they used 60 squares. So even today, you can call someone \u201cson of 60\u201d as an insult to mean \u201cyou\u2019re an animal\u201d. Son of 114 means: \u201cyou are perfect\u201d since they used 114 squares to draw the gods. Pretty cool!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The sites were amazing, but Sarah was the most ecstatic to see kittens.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Beautiful temple on the water <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After that, we headed to an ancient stone quarry where they used to mine pink granite. We learned a lot about how they cut the rock (and even got to try it). We went to the quarry where many stones for the temples and pyramids we\u2019d seen were mined, and we could imagine the labor involved in getting the stones all the way to Luxor and Giza (again, they said, not aliens).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eric tried carving stones like the Egyptians\u2014using a rock against a rock.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s also notable about this quarry is that they found the unfinished obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut (from the temple the other day). When they were cutting it, they found a crack, so they just left it. It was pretty amazing seeing the half-finished work and the size of the operation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Look close and you\u2019ll see the unfinished obelisk, which the ancient Egyptians tried carving out of the granite from the quarry.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Leaving the site of the unfinished obelisk. Our tour guide told us he used to work here in the quarry before he finished his PhD.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We were exhausted, so we went back and napped for the whole afternoon (we had to wake up early to go to Abu Simbel the next day, so we knew sleep would be scarce). But we made plans to go see the Nubian village at 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Today we got a scorpion! \ud83e\udd82 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nubians are the Egyptian people from the southern part of the country. They\u2019re more similar to the Sudanese in terms of looks, and they have a unique culture and language. As Ashraf was telling us, they still put crocodiles over the entryways to their house, which was a tradition from the ancient Egyptians and their worship of Sobek (though they don\u2019t recognize it as such\u2014it\u2019s just a tradition for them).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We jumped onto a boat (that looked suspiciously like the \u201cJungle Cruise\u201d boat) and headed up river to see the village. The ride itself was worth the price of admission. It involved navigating through narrow corridors and rocky, fast-moving waters with desert all around. We really felt like we were on the Nile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Move to our mini boat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Sunset jungle cruise <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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We loved going between jungle terrain and sand dunes on the cruise. Except when the captain blasted the horn, which was right next to us.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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And we\u2019re here at the Nubian village.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the village, we went to a tea shop and had hibiscus tea. The shop also bred and kept live crocodiles, which were just kind of randomly in a pit in the middle of the room. It was crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Our guide told us Nubians have been hanging crocodiles above their homes for generations.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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And they even have crocs inside.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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And of course our hibiscus tea came with a cat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We walked through the village through all the shops to a small language school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A camel passed by while we walked through the village.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ashraf knew we were interested in language, so he organized a 30 minute lesson in the Arabic and Nubian alphabet and number system. We had a blast trying (and failing) to pronounce all the phonetics, and they even taught us to write our own name. We loved it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We learned how write our names in the alphabet. Our instructor was excited to show us \u201cSarah\u201d, a common name in Arabic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From there, it was time for the \u201cNubian show\u201d, so we headed back to the boat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A group of performers did some traditional dances with music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We thought it would just be fun music and performances\u2026 <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And of course Sarah got pulled into one of the dances (she mostly succeeded at balancing a stick on her head while dancing\u2014impressive!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n