Aswan and Abu Simbel, Egypt

In Aswan, the Nubian museum was worth a visit to see in detail how large of an effort was undertaken by UNESCO to preserve around 28 historical sites along the Nile River, that would have been flooded with the building of the High Dam. The amount of effort that went into moving these temples was almost as spectacular as the temples themselves! The town is small and easily walkable and while exploring it seemed like the town found us. Small children came out of the woodwork to follow us around, and construction workers invited us up to the rafters to bang in some nails.

After we learned how much effort was put into saving these temples, we truly appreciated visiting the Temple of Isis. We had to hire a small boat to get to the small island and it was like being whisked back into time.

While in Aswan we celebrated our second Thanksgiving away from home. In a valiant attempt to find a rotisserie chicken for the feast, Kevin pulled out his best Pictionary skills.

We have been following the Muslim religion in both Morocco and Egypt by not consuming alcohol, but for Thanksgiving we decided to splurge and have a few local brews from the secret beer store. The views from our rooftop in Aswan were stunning and the Nile looked beautiful.

To get to Abu Simbel, we joined the tourist police convoy that left at 4am in the morning! It was well worth the trip to see in person how large the statues of Ramses II are. There were so many ancient scripts and wall drawings that we 100% recommend a book like the New Millennium Collection because it has really good illustrations and maps to guide you through your trip: http://books.google.com/books?id=JbkM_q-bpV4C