Egypt: Day Ten, Part One

Aga Khan's tomb across from Aswan

When we wake up, we’re in Aswan.  And we’re not the only ones, because we have to walk through several boats to get to terra firma.  We’ve traveled 600 miles upstream of Cairo, part by air, part by river, to the Governate of Aswan, whose population is three million, mostly “Nubians”, which accounts for the darker complexion. 

     Lucky for us we have a tourist bus because transport outside of Cairo is sketchy at best, which explains the host of minibuses and even pick-up trucks loaded with people standing in the bed.  Our bus takes us along the river, then uphill past a huge Coptic cathedral to the old Aswan Low Dam, built by the English at the turn of the last century.  As with many things in Egypt, it’s heavily guarded and Ahmed tells us we can take as many photos as we like, but not of the guards at either end.  He encourages us to put our cameras out of sight to avoid the bus being stopped.   With my zoom, I manage to take a few from far away when the bus maneuvers a turn.
       Aswan’s quarries are the only ones in Egypt supplying pink and grey granite.  That made the region very important.  Our first stop is at the quarry where an obelisk was carved for Hatshepsut.  The 10-foot-thick needle was to be the tallest ever at 90 feet, weighing in at 1,200 tons.  That’s more than twice the size of any obelisk made before then.  It was to be a symbol of Hatshepsut’s power, which must have been important, seeing as she was one of only two women - before Cleopatra - to have ruled as pharaoh, and by far the more powerful of the two.
        All that rock-carving was done by hitting dolorite spikes to create notches; then iron chisels took over.  The large round stones used as hammers are there for us to see.  But if the obelisk is still resting in the quarry today, it’s because it cracked near the top before completion and was abandoned on-site.  I can just imagine the worker reporting to his foreman - or the foreman reporting to Hatshepsut! - “I have some good news and some bad news.”   
       Of all the vendors we encounter, the ones here are the least pushy as we run the gauntlet of the bazaar at the end of the quarry (like the gift shop as you leave a museum).  There’s going to be a costume party tomorrow night so I buy a white cotton tunic with pale blue trim.  The price has already been negotiated by someone within earshot for a similar item, so it costs me a royal 130 Egyptian pounds, which translates to about $8.  And it’s not made in China; I check.  What’s more, the merchants worry about their reputation with future tourists.  One extremely alert shopkeeper actually runs up to the bus as it’s pulling out, saying that the book someone bought was in German, asking if they did that on purpose.

Next attraction:  the Aswan High Dam.  This one was Nasser’s idea, which is why the lake it created - one of the largest man-made lakes in the world - is named after him.  As we drive, Ahmed explains that Egypt had no money for technology, so Nasser decided to ask America and Europe for help.  Given the politics in 1954, the answer was no.  So the Soviet Union stepped in.  Construction stretched from 1960 to 1971.  Workers were paid initially, but later on people were forced to work - for the glory of Egypt (as in Pharaoh's time) - and more than 100,000 of them died.
       It’s a rock-filled earthen dam 1½ miles wide with a road along the top.  There are twelve turbines in all, but only four work at any one time.  In case the level gets too high and there’s a danger of flooding, the lake has two spillways:  one here, where we’re crossing, and one 140 miles to the south.  Both empty into the desert and have only been necessary five times so far.
       The lake created by the dam, although a blessing to Egyptians, would engulf several ancient sites.  UNESCO stepped in with a world-funded project and saved 22 temples.  Egypt gave four temples away - to Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and the United States (Dendur, part of which went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art).  The temple of Abu Simbel was moved to higher ground and the temple complex of Philae was also saved from the rising waters.  Forty-two Nubian villages also had to be moved.  In total a quarter of a million people had to be relocated, mostly to Edfu and Kom Ombo.
       We only drive across and back.  The jaunt offers us a great view of Lake Nasser and a chance to admire the dam.  But even though we obey Ahmed’s warning and hide our cameras, we’re stopped at the checkpoint just the same and the bus’s trunks are inspected by a guard with a sniffer dog.

Aswan