Philae Temple

We awoke/stayed awake as our train approached the city of Aswan, having travelled almost 1,000km down the Nile River Valley. From here we were transferred to our hotel, and assigned our "travel buddy". It wasn't an overland trip, so we didn't need to worry about cooking rosters, but we would be sharing a room due to the budget nature of our chosen tour. I was paired with a friendly compatriot named Brendan, and we immediately hit it off. This was purely good luck, since we were the only single guys on our tour, and we were therefore destined to be combined.

Thanks to the overnight train ride, we had a whole day in front of us, albeit a somewhat groggy one. Our first excursion began with a boat ride to the Ancient Temple of Isis at Philae, sort of. When the Aswan Dam was constructed in the Nile River, the subsequent flooding inundated several Ancient Egyptian archaeological sites. Some of these were left to go under water, but the Temple of Isis was to be spared, so the nearby island of Agilkia was flattened, and the Temple was relocated from the soon-to-be-submerged part of Philae, and rebuilt 12m higher up on the newly-levelled, adjacent dry land. So, technically the Temple is FROM Philae, and now sits on Agilkia.

I didn't know all of this beforehand, and my jaw dropped as our small boat rounded the headland, and the Temple of Isis emerged into view. Despite the fact that this UNESCO World Heritage listed marvel receives plenty of visitors (including Alexander the Great) the method of approach makes you feel like an explorer, discovering the monument for the first time.

We docked on the southern side of the island, and entered the complex via the imposing courtyard flanked by 6m tall columns. Each stone column was decorated, including some to look like lotus blooms, which added to the sense of awe. Your gaze is then drawn down to the grand facade that marked the entrance to the temple. This was as tall as a 6-storey building, and engraved with giant figures of ancient Egyptian dieties, despite the best efforts of Christians and other iconoclasts, who attempted to erase the massive carvings. We wandered around the extraordinary complex for as long as we could, until eventually we had to move on. It was easy to see why the Temples of Philae were once referred to as the "Pearl of the Nile".

That evening, we celebrated our first adventure with a dip in the hotel's rooftop pool and a golden sunset, as the sun dipped below the horizon on the opposite side of the Nile. This made me reflect on the amazing geography of the Nile River Valley. It hadn't struck me previously, but the Nile creates the narrowest sliver of green in the otherwise desolate sands of the Sahara Desert. In most places you could probably stand on the banks of the river, throw a rock over the fertile land, and hit the barren earth beyond. It was truly extraordinary that this had been the cradle for such an enduring civilisation.
We rounded out the day with dinner, and a walk through a lively market that had sprung up near our hotel. It was hard to imagine how our trip could get any better than this, but I didn't realise the scale of the engineering marvel that we would be seeing the next day.Leggi altro