Weekend getaway

Okay so the getaway wasn't so much mine as it was my friends' who came to stay with me while they visited Aswan.  Catherine, who I went to Siwa with, is leaving Egypt next Saturday, and her friend Joel is on a break from university here, so they came to visit.  They arrived on the train on Saturday morning and while they toured around the islands and west bank in Aswan I spent a few hours at work.  I should probably preface the rest of this post by saying that I also woke up Saturday morning and was unable to see across the Nile because of the thick dust that had settled over the city.  They had a great time and I went to my very dusty office.  By the end of the day my voice was on the verge of disappearing but I was otherwise having a great time.  I met them afterwork at a restaurant for some tea and cake with four Canadians they ran into while checking the opening times of the museum and then we got a taxi back into town for dinner.

I took the next day off and the three of us hoped in a microbus for the 4 hour ride to Abu Simbel (only 40km from the Sudanese border) which is on the shores of Lake Nasser.  It is the largest man made lake in the world, 310 miles long, and was created when they built the high dam in Aswan.  It pretty much flooded all of the land previously inhabited by the Nubians as well as covering up numerous historical sites.  The temples of Hathor and Ramses II were two of 14 structures that were taken apart and rebuilt on the shores of the lake by UNESCO.  The whole production in Abu Simbel cost only $40 million dollars...only.  They're really well preserved because they were covered by sand for thousands of years.  You aren't allowed to take pictures inside but you can get an idea of the size of them from the outside.

After a long 4 hour ride back we bought food in the market to cook dinner and spent the evening at my flat.  They left this morning and I was back to work.  I still can barely talk and I feel like I've coughed up a lung today but the dust has gone and my homemade chicken noodle soup should help clear things up.  I'm also thinking that if this is the only sickness I've had here I'm doing pretty well.  Many people end up with stomach bugs and we all know what that can lead to so a sore throat isn't too bad as long as I don't cough up a lung...which feels like a real possibility right now.