The felucca (sailboat) that we were traveling on dropped us and 6 others off on the bank of the Nile. We all hopped in the back of a covered pick-up truck and headed to Kom Ombo.
The Nile River is the heart and soul of Egypt. It´s existence has created a fertile area of farmland on both sides of the river from the sands of the desert. The trip up the Nile Valley along the river included passing green fields of sugar cane, bananas and corn. People worked the fields and the basic mud houses lined the sides of the road. Life here for most is very basic. The scenery is quite picturesque and we would have liked to stay in one of the villages for a day to know the area better.
Kom Ombo is located on the bank of the Nile, in an isolated location. It became important when it was made the capital of Upper Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy VI Philmetor (180-145BC). It was an important military base and trading center Egypt and Nubia. The site was nice but at this stage we were seeing temples every day and they were starting to all look the same. I know that it sounds bad but we had reached ¨temple burnout¨. We snapped some pictures and moved on.
We climbed on a minibus at this point and joined an armed caravan to the ruins at Edfu. Edfu is the most completely preserved temple in all Egypt and we really enjoyed it. You enter from the entrance into a great court. From there the large site is full of small rooms of well preserved frescoes. We definitely recommend it.
After leaving Edfu we continued by caravan to Luxor where we caught an overnight train to Cairo.
Steve
The Nile River is the heart and soul of Egypt. It´s existence has created a fertile area of farmland on both sides of the river from the sands of the desert. The trip up the Nile Valley along the river included passing green fields of sugar cane, bananas and corn. People worked the fields and the basic mud houses lined the sides of the road. Life here for most is very basic. The scenery is quite picturesque and we would have liked to stay in one of the villages for a day to know the area better.
Kom Ombo is located on the bank of the Nile, in an isolated location. It became important when it was made the capital of Upper Egypt during the reign of Ptolemy VI Philmetor (180-145BC). It was an important military base and trading center Egypt and Nubia. The site was nice but at this stage we were seeing temples every day and they were starting to all look the same. I know that it sounds bad but we had reached ¨temple burnout¨. We snapped some pictures and moved on.
We climbed on a minibus at this point and joined an armed caravan to the ruins at Edfu. Edfu is the most completely preserved temple in all Egypt and we really enjoyed it. You enter from the entrance into a great court. From there the large site is full of small rooms of well preserved frescoes. We definitely recommend it.
After leaving Edfu we continued by caravan to Luxor where we caught an overnight train to Cairo.
Steve
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