The Sun rises. You’re up and running at four am, warrior spirit up, get in the shower now. Yes, this could be a long day. It will be. You just don’t know it yet. The day must start so early, still so dark, because there is no other way about today’s adventure. A while into the plot, things get a bit strange. Secrecy. Silence. Suspense. We wait in the vehicle. It’s not a terrorist vs. good guy movie. It’s the real thing. Some places in this world could be dangerous, and could turn chaotic from one minute to the next. This is one of those places.

It starts smelling like Socialist Cuba, the secrecy, I mean. Although you don’t speak Arabic, you smell guerrilla moves, you hear guerrilla talk, oh, shit, man, no, I don’t want any more guerrilla shit in my life, please. I just want to go to Abu Simbel.

But you must go on and you must go in a convoy, no other way. So we gather, we are taken from the hotel in a little minivan, then to another van, then to a larger 50-seat tourist bus. Buses line up at a meeting point, something like a revolutionary square, I know these places, speeches, leaders, flags, the whole thing, just that this time around it’s dark, it’s early, really early, and it’s very cold.

Suddenly, you stop smelling the guerrilla thing. Now you see it. The guerrila thing is now in front of you, leaders with walkie-talkies, green uniforms, jeeps, these are the security people.

If you ever lived in a Communist country, you can tell them from a mile away. In Cuba they were called “segurosos” and they pissed you off big time. Until you learned how to deal with them, and you became another Julien Sorel and lied back to them, and told them exactly what they wanted to hear. But these green uniforms were taking care of the tourists. I suppose there was or there still is a difference with the regular person in the street, yes, most tourists won’t notice, but you will. The Camilitos training at the pilots’ academy must have been good for something; at least you can distinguish from a couple of hundred meters an AK-47 from a large umbrella. This ain’t no umbrella tale. This is a convoy, and we’re going deep in the desert, hoping no real guerrilla from the (north) Sudan attacks any tourist today. Oh, wait, don’t scare me, man.

“No photo no photo,” the para-military aid says.

“Alright,” I said, not looking directly at his eyes, and stayed in the bus. From my window I can see two or three batteries of convoys, each with 2 military Jeeps, and one larger, light artillery vehicle, leading a caravan of 7-10 buses, then another two military vehicles and a light artillery cruiser, guarding the back of the line.

This is the only way and the only route to visit Abu Simbel, which you don’t believe until you get there. This is not the western world, and these are not your usual routes. Look at your map. One river, one road, one huge desert. Do you want to get lost in the sands and become the lunch of a gang of falcons? Of course not. Then, shut up, cooperate, and come with us. No, really, if you want to get back home, to Aswan, in one piece, you shut up and you cooperate, and you get with the program.

At six degrees Celsius the desert is cold. At six am sharp, we hit the road. We don’t know what awaits us, but the Sun is with us now. Thank you, Great Ra, God of the Sun! Thank you, God Almighty, Allah, Moses, Dios TodoPoderoso, Buddha, Oloffi, and all the names of the Divine Creator! This will be a very special day of my life!

This miniature model represents the arduous task of moving up the monumental sculptural ensemble some 60 meters (200 feet) up from its original site by the Nile River, and about 200 meters inland (600 feet), from the very riverside original location. A feat of human ingenuity, this was a great salvage accomplishment for the world united, i.e., the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This happened in 1964. What a great year! I know, I was born that year! ¡Tremenda cosecha la de ese año!

The Great Temple “was dedicated to the gods Amun, Ra-Horakhty, and Ptah, as well as to the deified Rameses himself. It is generally considered the grandest and most beautiful of the temples commissioned during the reign of Rameses II, and one of the most beautiful in Egypt.”  (Excerpt borrowed with permission from Wikipedia.org)

Ramsés, Ramsés, Ramsés, and Ramsés.  Of course, you know who ordered them built, right?  Exactly:  Ramses II.  (Ramsés, in Spanish, with an accent, sounds very Pharaoh).

Falafel, pita bread, some fried thing, kind of unknown fried thing, but it did taste good,  Well, I knew it would be a long day again, and had to fill up the tank (the stomach) with some food until the night.  Let’s say, the fried thing (protein, I suppose), tasted good but different.  They also served cucumber, some cheese, slices of a very tiny, greenish tomato, good, though, some jam made of dates or a local fruit.  I couldn’t quite taste it all, I hardly had time to pick a couple of slices of the pita bread, and some of the stuff and run, because the jeep that was going to take us to Kom Ombo was waiting by the road, about 50 feet from the riverside.

Breakfast in the felucca, floating on the Nile River, Egypt. It reminded me of the Mastercard commercial. Now this breakfast on the run, on the sail, even if I have to be on the run for the next excursion or the next unforgettable adventure, really, PRICELESS!  

Ricardo Trelles