Good-bye Vancouver

My hubby and I left sunny Vancouver yesterday morning after two weeks with the family. We drove through BC and just past Calgary to Strathmore, Alberta yesterday. Today we got as far as Brandon, Manitoba. Why the rush? Well my hubby has always assured me that this drive back wasn't going to be leisurely. And as it turned out, there were not a lot of photo ops. First we ran into rain and fog as we drove into the Rockies. Then today, we drove through snow. I guess April is not the month for touring Canada. Here are a few photos I did manage. 

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Vancouver flowers

I am only one week late in updating my blog. We have been busy playing "shop", cooking in the play kitchen, playing games on the BlackBerry, and reading story books. It's been fun. The weather this past week has been mainly overcast with sunny breaks, but summer-like weather. It has been really nice. This week temperatures are expected to get even warmer under sunny skies.  The cherry blossoms were done, but the dogwood trees are in full bloom. The dogwood is BC's provincial flower. I have also included photos of rhododendrons , tulips, and lilacs.

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Leaving on a Jet Plane

So I was not able to cover my entire Egyptian trip before I left for another trip. This time it is across country to the West Coast to see our oldest son and his family. I will have my Blackberry with me so I may be able to post occasionally from Vancouver. I will wait until I am back to finish up my Egyptian trip. We are flying out from Toronto today, but we will be driving my son's van back. We don't expect to be back until around the beginning of May. I am looking forward to the warmer temperatures. They have been enjoying summer weather for over a month now, while in Ontario we had snow flurries this weekend. When we get back, there will be grass to cut and flower and veggie beds to prepare. So, talk to you tomorrow.

Philae Temple

We took yet another mode of transportation...a river taxi, to get to Philae Temple. This was one of the temples that had to be moved from Philae Island in the 70's before the build of the High Dam.  Partially flooded by the Old Dam, a coffer dam had to be built around Philae Island and the water pumped out before the move could begin. Forty thousand blocks were moved 500 m to the new location on higher ground on Agilkia Island. Philae Island is now submerged under Lake Nasser.

Aswan Dam

On the morning of the fourth day we sailed into Aswan. We will be docked here while visiting several landmarks in the area. The first one will be the High Dam in Aswan (not to be confused with the Old Dam). These are my photos (for a change).

Aswan Bridge

Looking down on the Nile towards the bottom of the High Dam

In the distance you can see the Egyptian-Russian Friendship Monument to commemorate Russia's involvement when the dam was constructed. The five spires represent the 5 lotus petals. 

The hydro electric power house

Cross-section of the dam. It is one km across the bottom

Map of the Nile with its origins at Victoria Falls

The High Dam has created Lake Nasser, which is 298 miles long and 10 miles wide at its widest point

Nasser Lake was named after the Egyptian President who was holding power at the time of its construction. The lake displaced 100,000 Nubians and several temples and monuments in its path. We will be visiting a couple of those temples which,  through the efforts of UNESCO and the Egyptian government,  were saved and moved to higher ground. 

Kom Ombo

Kom Ombo Temple is on the riverbank of the Nile. Our cruise ship was able to dock alongside. 

Dual entrance to this completely symetrical temple is also demonstrated by the double sun disks above the lintel. The front facade, birthing room and pillars of the common open court are almost completely destroyed. You can see parts that remain in the top photo. 

Egyptian Calendar. Other engravings within the temple showed the three seasons (flooding, planting, and harvest) Also there was a list of surgical instruments presented to the God of Medicine. 

Partial ceiling showing vultures 

One side of the temple was devoted to Sobek (the crocodile god) and Horus the elder (falcon god)

An important feature of the temple still remaining is the well

Stairs going down into the well indicates that this was a nilometer. Priests used the level of the Nile to determine what taxes would be. The higher the water, the more water from the Nile for irrigation which meant good crops and therefore higher taxes. 

Mummified crocodiles on display in a small museum in the Hathor chapel. There were over 300  mummified crocodiles found buried at this temple. It is known that they also kept live crocodiles on site.

So none of these photos that I used are mine. They were all taken from the internet and I think I used all daytime pictures. When we arrived in Kom Ombo, it was already dusk and turned dark very quickly. I was having a lot of trouble with my camera. I believe now my camera's batteries were either too low or finished altogether. I won't be able to pick up "Dee's" photos from her camera until after I come back from my trip out west. I took 3 photos with my Blackberry, but they have our mugs on them, so I will not use them on my blog. 

That is the beauty of doing scrapbooks, or Memory books. You can document about your trip (or other event) without the use of ANY photos or ones that you have taken from elsewhere. I made sure I bought postcards and booklets along the way. Right now I am in a hurry to document my trip, so I have run out of time to brighten or crop or do any kind of editing to my own photographs. I remember the feeling this night of being "templed out". I hardly knew what I was taking pictures about, and with my camera not working properly, I could have cared less about taking any. I also remember walking by a fellow who was enchanting a cobra with his flute. I hesitated to take a picture, but he was surrounded by a big crowd and my group was way ahead of me and I might not get a picture anyway. Enter the internet. Other people took that photo, so I will use one of theirs in my book just to remember the incident. Other than that, my recollections include going through the gauntlet of vendors going back to the ship. They were the most aggressive of the whole trip. Usually you could walk past them with eyes down or straight ahead, showing no interest at all in their wares. These guys knew they had a very short window of opportunity to sell you something before  you disappeared inside the ship. They literally put things on top of your head, your shoulders, your back forcing you to stop to remove them. It was funny actually. "Dee" called out my name at one point to call me back for help. I had successfully run the gauntlet and was only steps away from freedom. As I was returning to help her, she used my diversion as a way to extricate herself from the group and the two of us ran for the ship, all the while they were calling out "Sooo-zan" (because that was what "dee" had called out.) I didn't ever mind the intrusions of the vendors as they were only trying to make a living. Tourism has declined so dramatically, it has affected their economy immensely.   

Edfu: The Temple of Horus

We travelled from the Cruise ship to Edfu Temple by horse and carriage

Coming back from our tour, I was the one sitting beside the driver. Egyptian drivers need to contend with other vehicles, donkey carts, horse and carriage, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, buses, camels and pedestrians. There is NO WAY I would ever drive on Egyptian roads, especially in Cairo. Our Memphis Tours drivers were exceptional. 

School children

Temple of Hatshepsut and the Valley of Kings

It is Friday night and  I would like very much to finish up the photo log of my Egyptian trip by Monday. The main reason I would like to finish up quickly, is because I am off on another trip this coming Tuesday. My Sweetie Pie and I are flying to Vancouver to see the family. When I come back I want to work almost exclusively on the Memory book of Egypt. This blogging about it has forced me to sort and research the photos in such a way that it all makes sense. On Day One of our Nile Cruise, we  boarded the ship and have been to the Luxor Temple and the Karnac Temple. This morning (Day Two) we were in the hot air balloon and now we are on the West bank of the Nile to visit the Temple of Hatshepsut and the Valley of the Kings.

Hatshepsut was a powerful female pharaoh who ruled for 20 years

Steep cliffs in a horseshoe shape provide the background to this funerary temple.

A series of ramps and terraces to reach the Temple. This is looking back down to the parking lot.

Hot air balloon ride at dawn

Now I know you have seen some of my pictures of the hot air balloons, but I have a story to tell. Our balloon is the solid red one in the photo above. Notice it is flanked by a yellow and green  striped balloon and a  blue one. Soon our basket will right itself like you see with the yellow and green one right now. It is just in the process of coming up from a lying down position. People are already in the yellow and orange basket and will be taking off momentarily. 

When our basket righted itself, we were helped inside. These baskets are large enough to hold about 16 people or more. Then our balloon failed. It was collapsing onto itself so the hot air could no longer get inside to fill out the balloon. (I am thinking that it was because of the flanking balloons pushing us off centre of the hot air) The blue one at this point had grown larger and was pushing ours aside. We had to get into the landing position, which was squatted down and lying on our backs inside the basket. We waited for the other two balloons to lift off before we could start again. So if you are looking at the photo above and you notice everyone is standing sideways. Those are the people on the ground. We are the ones lying sideways. 

Because we were right under the balloon, I was able to get this photo

And this one

A very foggy overcast morning.  The smoke indicates the sugar cane fields being burned off after the harvest. 

 

A "sugar kiss". We got so low at one point, we could pick the leaves of the sugar cane.

Luxor Temple

Because I did nothing yesterday except clean one toilet and help my Hubby with some electrical installations, I thought I should do a little more today in the line of housekeeping. Remember I told you I would continue to use my Christmas (winter) dish pattern 'til February? Well today was the day I finally put them away and brought out my everyday dishes.

I vacuumed the carpeting on the stairs and did two super loads of laundry. I have done two dishwasher loads of dishes. That's it. That's all. But it's more than I did yesterday.

Here are some photos of Luxor Temple. Now I can hear you say....but, Susan. We saw these ones yesterday. But you would be mistaken. These two Temples were only three kilometers away from each other, but were built around the same time. The constructions were very similar. In fact, the two Temples were joined by the Avenue of sphinxes.

Human-headed sphinxes

This photo taken by me at dusk. Details are hard to distinguish. 

Daytime photo from the internet. The missing twin obelisk can be found in Paris. Grooves in the facade were for erecting flags, as can be seen in the next photo. 

Artist's rendition of how the Temple looked "back in the day".

Ramses II

Early Coptic Christians hid out in these temples during the persecutions. They considered the hieroglyphics to be pagan, so plastered over them and painted Christian scenes. 

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Later, a Mosque was built over the Temple. After the archaelogical excavation, it is still a Mosque today, entered from the street on the other side. 

Inside the protected walls of the Temple, there is evidence of the colour they used to paint the hieroglyphics.

Sorry about the poor quality of some of these photos. I've included them anyways, but I bought postcards to supplement my scrapbooks. I can also use photos from the internet, like I did tonight to illustrate what I experienced. Sometimes, photos were not allowed to be taken.