While our Hostel in Aswan had offered to run a trip to Abu Simbel at 3am, we again made the mistake of using public transport for the 3 hour journey. If the buses had run on time, we would have had 2 hours on site. However, after numerous stops for coffee, toilet breaks, all the men (including Shaun) having to get out of the bus to push it, we arrived at Abu Simbel with only 30minutes before the last bus home and a 15 minute walk to the site. As all the transport going from Aswan to Abu Simbel required a police escort, we were going to have to rely on a minivan for the ride home.
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| 'Fixing' the bus |
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| Walking to Abu Simbel |
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| The beautiful Temple of Ramses II & Temple of Hathor |
While the temples were beautiful, after kissing the ground of our safe hostel in Aswan, we had some doubts whether it was worth the ride home. The ride basically involved us getting back from the temple at 3pm, entering the small town, having a tourist policemen tell us that the next minibus would leave in an hour when it filled up, walking around as the only woman in sight, being videoed on an iphone by some locals, being shepherded onto the van by people who didn't speak English, waiting another 2 hours for the van to pick up locals from nearby villages, having the guy who organised for us to get on the van show us a picture of his bombshell British 'wife' and himself in a balaclava, the same guy asking if we had friends or family waiting for us and wanting to know the details of our travels, the driver refusing to let us off the bus after we had already got on (even with offers of money), driving at high speeds with no lights on a deserted desert road, and having everyone stare at us at the same time. Sorry mum and dad for the hourly checks I made you do!
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