we are enjoying the seen.

A felucca on the Nile

Colossi at Memnon

Queen Hatshepsut.

A temple corner.

Nile view from boat.

Exploration of Archaeological sites by boat. We started our Egyptian discovery cruise at Luxor all the way to Aswan. I like to mention that the scenery along the Nile is beautiful; it is very lush. I was told that in some places the vegetation is not more than a kilometer in land, and the deepest that the vegetation will extend inward is fifteen to twenty kilometres. Everything else is desert. All or most of the temples with their supporting cities were built along the shores of mother Nile, including the sphinx and the pyramids of Giza. There are many marshlands, however in many places the shore embankments are very high-up from the water level. I was amazed to see that for irrigation they were still using the old Egyptian waterwheel to lift the water on their fields; to see it, is like stepping back in time. Not only were they irrigating in the old ways, the way they fished was just as antiquated as their civilisation. (One can see their ancient way of fishing described vividly on their temples graphic paintings and Hieroglyphics.) Their felucca boats are just as antiquated, however they are very efficient, their waterwheel and their fishing nets. Progress some time is not better, it may be faster but more polluting, whereas their old tools are pollution free. In the olden days the Nile waters regularly flooded all the land along its shores, depositing a coat of highly fertilized mud. One can say that the highly and long-lived Egyptian civilisation was the product of the Nile inundations which left behind that life giving mud. The Egyptian by harnessing the Nile waters (built huge dams) that cut-off the Nile floods, hence no more revitalisation of their lands. Who knows if the energy that was created by taming the Nile waters, is more beneficial in the long run than their once great and now very meagre land resources.

Egyptian          Nile

Entrance to the temple.

pharaoh's throne Decorations.

Wife between legs.

Elsa with pharaoh's head.

Part of temple façade.

Carved temple wall.