Aswan High Dam (10/22/2023)

Sunday, October 22, 2023

Our included shore excursion by motor coach would start out with a stop at the Aswan High Dam.

A Tourist Police kiosk at our dock

Aswan has a KFC, as well as McDonald's

View towards Elephantine Island, a large island
in the Nile River with luxury hotels and Nubian villages

Nubians are an indigenous people from the area encompassing northern Sudan and southern Egypt.

Unidentified sculpture near the Nubian Museum

Aswan Military Hospital was built by the Egyptian
Armed Forces Engineering Authority for the
Ministry of Health (i.e., not just for the military)

Entrance to Aswan Stadium (1962), home to the
Aswan Sporting Club, an Egyptian football/soccer club
intermittently playing in the Egyptian Premier League

First we crossed the Aswan Old or Low Dam (1899-1902,
by the British), which is a gravity buttress dam that was the
largest msaonry dam in the world when completed;
it had to be raised twice in 1907-1912 and 1929-1933);
note the colorful guard kisok

Downstream from the Old Dam

Upstream from the Old Dam

A navigation lock, allowing ships to pass the first cataracts,
where previously overland portage was required

The dam was ostensibly built to control flooding of the Nile,
but it also produces hydroelectric power

Now we are on the Aswan Dam or High Dam (1960-1970),
an embankment dam that was the tallest earthen dam
in the world when completed; built to better control
flooding, to provide increased water storage for
irrigation, and to generate hydroelectricity, it was
financed by the USSR; looking downstream

Here the dogs lie on the wall to take advantage
of windy breezes, under surveillance cameras

Vast hydroelectric plant

Looking upstream at Lake Nasser, a reservoir created
by the dam that displaced over 100,000 people in the area
inhabited by the Nubians, and also flooded many
archaeological sites - 22 were relocated by UNESCO
and about 11 were gifted to foreign museums

Lake Nasser extends into Sudan, being 79 km/298 miles long, and 16 km/9.9 miles at its widest point.

The road across the High dam

From the sloping downstream side,
a view towards the monument

The Egyptian-Russian Friendship Monument
(1967) represents a lotus blossom; apparently
the word 'Russian' replaced 'Soviet' after 1991

Hmm, I guess only the front of the Egyptian
flag has an eagle on the white band

This is the Egyptian flag since the 1952 Egyptian Revolution; however, our guide indicated that the people would like to reinstate the previous flag of a white crescent and three stars on a green field.

The very tall "palm tree" is a cellular tower

Statue of Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad, an Egyptian
journalist, poet, and literary critic who was born in Aswan

Mext: Aswan Market Spice Shop.