THE HIGH DAM

After that we went to the High Dam. The dam was completed in 1964. It prevents the Nile from flooding. Over the centuries of the Nile River flooding it has destroyed large tracts of land. The dam has created the largest artificial lake in the world. It is called Lake Nassar. The High Dam has helped regulate the fluctuation of the flow of the Nile and has helped increase Egypt's cultivatable land by 30%. But now that the Nile can no longer flood, the silt cannot distribute on the land like it had for eons. Now other forms of fertilizer has to be used to grow crops.

There is a quarry in Aswan where there is a huge unfinished obelisk from an ancient period in Egypts history. Still nobody know how the stone was cut or how these large obelisks were transported.

Later in the evening I went out on an Egyptian sailboat called a Felluca on the Nile. It takes two men to navigate one of these fellucas. first we crossed the Nile and went close to the other shore. There we were able to see the small caves dug in the side of the bluff which once served as a monestary for the early Coptic church that sprung up in Egypt just after the appearance of Jesus on earth. We spent a couple hours on this felluca with the guide explaining a little of the history of the area. While we were on the boat we came close to Elephantine Island. It is off limits to tourists usually because it is where the Nubian people live. This concludes my trip down the Nile River.

GETTING READY TO GO TO ABU SIMBEL

I made it back to the ship and had dinner and then went to my cabin and packed my stuff. The next morning I would be taking an airplane to Abu Simbel. It is one of the major tourist sites in Egypt.