Day 3 - Kom Ombo and Cruising - March 11, 2023
When we woke this morning the boat was moored up on the shore and looking up out of our window we could see tourists looking down at us as they walked along the gangplank passing through our lobby to their own boat tethered on the opposite side. I was kind of wondering if we had missed some outing or something but a short time later we were on our way again.
We were at breakfast at 8:30 with quite a good selection on offer with a section of meat and cheese slices, another with various breads, and the hot buffet consisting of various breakfast items including a station for fresh omelettes.
After chatting with our table guests we returned to our room to pick up books, sun cream and the like before heading up to the roof to site and relax as we continued down the Nile. It was very hot in the sun so we spent most of our time in the shade watching the ever changing scenery on the shore go by.
I was watching the birds spotting ibis, king fishers and numerous small white egrets. The landscape was no less interesting as we wound past small and large villages, and many more farmer's fields. We have been following an brown sand escarpment on the east for some time at at one point we saw the ruins of an ancient village in the face causing many onboard to come to the rail to take pictures. The smoke we noticed from yesterday has continued with a dull haze covering everything as well as the smell.
After an action packed morning we returned to the dining room for lunch at 1:00 pm then down to our room to lie in the air conditioning and read for a while before our outing. The cleaners had left us a bit of a surprise sitting on the bed: An amazing looking elephant made out of towels.
We had been told that we would be visiting the temple of Kom Ombo (no, I did not know it either) at 2:30 pm but we arrived at more like 3:30 pm and were annoyed to notice on the doors was written that the boat would be leaving at 4:30 pm. We met our English speaking guide in the lobby along with the only four other English speaking passengers.
We had to walk through one boat before crossing onto the shore via the gangplank. The slanted stone and concrete shoreline was topped with a narrow path lined with souvenir stalls and trees.
We got the normal hassle as we walked along stopping only to say hi to some mangy looking dogs or to take pictures of what was looming into view in front of us: The magnificent columns of the Kom Ombo temple façade.
As we walked along our guide presented us with our tickets and told us how to enter the site through the door to the left of the entrance which led into a room with standard airport-style security scanners before assembling in front the temple. The temple is not terribly old only dating to 200 BC, well after the years of the ancient Egyptian civilization, and were probably begun under Ptolemy IV with work continuing until well into the Roman era. The temple is unusual in that it is dedicated to two gods: Horus, the hawk-faced sun deity, and Sobek, the crocodile-headed water deity. The building is perfectly symmetrical with one half devoted to one god and the other half to the other god.
Incidentally, we learned from our guide that nowadays there are no crocodiles in the Nile but they can still be found in Lake Nassar.
The guide took us into the temple, stopping to point out important carvings on the wonderfully decorated walls. We were amazed at the colours on the walls so vivid after all these years (though the temple was covered for many years by sand which will have helped preserve this) and it was wonderful to see the magnificent hieroglyphics - art works themselves - throughout.
The structure has been large recreated which gives you an idea of the size - Not massive but certainly impressive.
As we moved to the back of the building we approached the high altar and were shown where the priest would travel through a tunnel to enter into the altar room unseen. To the left of the site we were shown a deep round pit with a tunnel leading to it which MAY have housed a crocodile though this has never been conclusively proven.
Behind this there was a roped off section with recent finds laid out by the site archaeologists, indeed to the left of that there was an excavation underway.
The guide gave us about 15 minutes to wander around. We took the time to take some pictures of things he had pointed out but we had not been able to examine more closely earlier. The ground is uneven stones and it was common to stumble as we slowly walked around looking in awe above us at the amazing murals and even ceiling panels. There is carving everywhere and all of it is meticulous and, frankly, beautiful looking. There are little rooms here, there and everywhere to wander through. Some obviously store rooms, some meeting areas but all walls decorated from bottom to top, some 30 to 40 feet above our heads. The temple was reasonably busy with our having to wait for one group or another to clear out of our viewfinder in order for us to take a picture.
We were getting a bit anxious about time as 4:30 quickly approached so we pressed our guide to get moving despite him suggesting we have a drink at the café. At the site exit there is an amazing crocodile museum that we were able to walk through containing a number of long, skinny, crocodile mummies and various displays about the temple. The dim interior made it difficult to take pictures but it was quite something to see despite our being in a bit of a hurry.
At the exit of the museum I was able to visit a crammed souvenir shop which I searched to find some information to read about the site. I ended up buying a rather overpriced, slim, book on the site (200 LP, or about £5) before we rushed to get out the exit gate to head back to the boat in time for our 4:30 departure.
Kom Ombo Pictures (from Flickr)
Of course, we needn't of rushed. We were boxed in at all sides now with a traffic jam with what must have been about 20 cruise boats now moored up along the shore belching out huge clouds of black smoke. When we arrived there was only about 4-5! Our boat was the second in a stack of about 4 or 5 so we were not going anywhere all that soon.
Returning to the roof to relax we eventually started sailing at about 5:30 pm. We could have had another 30-40 minutes in the temple had we known! Anyway, we continued our watching of the scenery, including seeing the sunset over the Nile…with a bit of smoke haze. At 7:30 we returned to the dining room one flight below for dinner.
The evening was quite cool back on the upper deck. There is always something to see here as we passed under a modern looking suspension bridge with only a small amount of clearance, perhaps only 6 or 7 feet - I was wondering why the ship's aerial had been lying on it's side all this time…We were tired and left the deck a short time later to return to our room. In the lobby we took a picture of tomorrow's itinerary, in German, then talked to the front desk to learn that we were to ignore the 7:30 am departure time tomorrow morning on the itinerary as we were set to meet in the lobby for the English excursion at 6:00 am with breakfast arranged for rather shocking 5:30 am. We were arriving in Aswan.
⇒ Continue to Day 4 - Aswan Dam, Philea Temple and Nubian Village - March 12, 2023