EGYPT  2001:

Our hotel was pretty close to the temple.  I remember that I was very happy to finally drop off my heavy bags once we got our rooms.  The rooms however were pretty junky.  They smelled bad and I found a roach running laps in a circle in the bathtub.  I didn't care too much because at least the air conditioning worked.  The first thing a group of us did when we arrived at the hotel was change and go to the pool.  While we were swimming and cooling off, Dr. Wahby showed up and said the mayor was still going to come to see us at the hotel.  We swam for about an hour, changed back into our nicer clothes, and went to the lobby to meet the mayor.

I was elected by Dr. Wahby to video tape the session with the mayor with the doctor's video camera.  The mayor was very pleased to have a group of students visiting his town with interest in his country and the Toshka Project.  After the meeting was over, all of our group except for Dr. Wahby and Fathy, ate dinner at the hotel.  Fathy and Dr. Wahby went with the mayor to a much nice restaurant for dinner.

After dinner, I went out exploring the area around the hotel.  I took my camera and found a peninsula of rocks extending into Lake Nasser.  The rock peninsula was pretty tall and far from the water, so I walked out on it with hopes to see a crocodile below in the water or on the shore.  Unfortunately I did not find any crocks, but I did get a couple nice pictures of the sunset.  I believe that our group was the only tourist group in the town at the time.  As you can see in the picture of the pool that the beach chairs were stripped of their cushions and the grounds were poorly maintained.  I think we came after the tourism season was over because it gets too hot in the day time.

After taking the pictures of the sunset, I went with a group of four from our group to walk into town to see what it looks like.  Abu Simbel turned out ot be a very small town.  We walked through the main part of town until we found a second hotel.  The second hotel was many times nicer than the one we were at.  We sat down and had a drink before heading back to the crappy hotel we were staying at.  

The next morning our group hopped on a bus and headed for the Toshka project.  We arrived at a section of the canal at sunrise.  They let us out of the bus and part of our group ran down to the bottom of the large canal base to take pictures and look around.  After taking pictures and climbing back up the steep walls, our bus headed for an unfinished part of the canal.  We saw how the canal was built and how the cement was poured to make the walls.  Below are the pictures of the construction of the canal.