Abu Simbel
One of the highlights of my recent trip to Egypt was an early morning visit to the Temple of Ramsses II and the Temple of Nefertari at Abu Simbel. Sure, it required a 2:30 am check out from my Cairo hotel and a pre-dawn flight to Abu Simbel, but it was worth it. Even the seas of tourists couldn’t break the spell of seeing a place that has lived in my mind since seeing the National Geographic article on the efforts to save the temple from the rising waters caused by the building of the high dam at Aswan back in the late ’60s. Here is a pdf with details of the relocation. Imagine the task involved in not only cutting up and relocating the temple facade to higher ground, but also the multiple rooms that had been carved inside the mountain.
I wish the temples had never had to have been moved in the first place — the surrounding “mountain” has a Disney-ish appearance — but I’m glad to have had the opportunity to go inside without scuba equipment. It’s truly incredible the effort that went into saving these structures.
Awesome! You usually get up at 2:30am anyway, right?
Pretty much. Slept in a couple of hours today. Didn’t get up until 4:30.
Bruce,
Nice set of shots from Egypt. I was there in February and also got some good images of the baloon flight.
I am surprised that you have a shot of the interior of Abu Simbel because there was a strict no photo policy in force whilst I was there, interior shots of temples and tombs was a complete no no. In fact at one of the temples a woman who tried to take a photo of the interior was promptly escorted off the premises and had to erase the images she had taken.
Still, thanks for the memory- it sure is a great site to see.
David
Thanks, David. You are absolutely right about the no-photo policies at many of the temples and tombs in Egypt. I was there with a group of journalists at the invitation of the Egyptian Tourism Authority and were accompanied by their Tourism Attache and Deputy Directory. Our group was given special access and photo privileges at many sites in hopes that we would help promote Egyptian tourism through our photos and stories. Definitely, we were a special case.
We still had restrictions in place when it came to activities that could damage the sites. Flash photography, for instance, was still not permitted and we had a specific number of tripod permits each day — fewer than there were photographers in our group. I would never shoot in an area with restricted photography if I didn’t have special permission. It’s not worth the risk of having your equipment confiscated and it doesn’t show respect for the site or the local people.
Group trips like these are not always conducive to getting good stock photography but it’s cases like this where special access or permissions are granted that make them very valuable to me. You have to balance whether those permissions outweigh the limitations in flexibility (not being able to schedule your own time to take advantage of light and weather, for instance) to decide whether the opportunity is worth it. In the case of my Egypt trip, it definitely was.
Bruce,
Thanks for the explanation.
David