DAY 5: ABU SIMBEL

We transferred to Aswan airport for the 25-minute flight to Abu Simbel. The view from the plane is of pure sandy desert as far as the eye can see and of Lake Nasser, the largest man-made lake in the world. We land at Abu Simbel and take a quick 5-minute shuttle by motorcoach to these stunning monuments built by Ramses II just 25 miles from the Sudanese border. These two temples were built into the mountainside between 1274 and 1244 B.C. The original feat is matched only by the skill with which the temples were cut into pieces and reassembled on high ground in the 1960's to save them from the newly dammed rising waters of the Nile.