Sickness

To my great annoyance and pain, I've come down with some intestinal bug. I believe I caught the things while I was cruising on the Nile. At first, I suffered a mild case of diarrhea then, it progressed to stomach pain and finally steady intestinal pain. Luckily, there is a nurse in our group who knows about such things. She sold me a combination antibiotic/anti-diuretic. The drug has supposedly worked for her while she's been here. Now, I have to be patient and wait for the drug to do its stuff. That isn't easy when your gut is steadily hurting. There has been one blessing of sorts. Because of the bug, I woke up at 2 a.m. this morning and, I couldn't get back to sleep. I'd planned to skip the excursion to Abu Simbel because I didn't want to have to get up at 3:30 a.m. Because of the bug, I woke up earlier and decided that I might as well go on the trip.

Abu Simbel was very impressive. Rameses II didn't believe in building small monuments to himself. This one features 18 meter (approximately 60 feet) high statues of himself as well as a number of ingrained pictures telling of his alleged victory over the Hittites. The pictures are stunning. Another interesting thing about the temple is that apparently Rameses II was impatient to become a god. While a pharoah is alive, he is considered a semi-God. It is only when he dies that he become a full god. Rameses wanted to be a full God in life. He couldn't be one where people understood the Egyptian religion so he built a temple in one of the remotest parts of the Egyptian empire and told the garrison there to worship him as a God. The garrison reportedly did what they were told. Another interesting thing is that Rameses built a temple to his primary wife Nefertari. Egyptian Queens don't receive temples unless they become pharaohs like Hatshepsut. Nefertari was the first. This indicates that Nefertari was very powerful.

Overall, the temples were very impressive. I was glad I got to see them though I didn't enjoy the steady intestinal pain I suffered during the visit. For now, I have to wait for the antibiotic to do its stuff. Hopefully, it'll beat the bug quickly. We'll see. Tomorrow, I fly back to Cairo for my last full day in Egypt. I hope to post one last update while there. Stay tuned for further updates.