If life along the Nile was agricultural with crops growing and farm animals bathing and the odd town or city dotted along it, then life on Lake Nasser was a totally different experience. The Nile is no wider than the Thames in most places and was populated along its length on both sides, while Lake Nasser is about 40km wide in some places with very little but rocky outcrops and desert either side.
At times it felt like you were in one of the most remote places on Earth and, indeed, for two days of the trip we had no mobile of wi-fi connection of any type and saw nobody else apart from the people on the ship.
The temples on Lake Nasser were all removed from what used to be the banks of the Nile and placed on much higher ground before the area was flooded and it became Lake Nasser. The other thing about Lake Nasser is that the north of Egypt is very much Arabian while the south of the country around Lake Nasser is seen as Nubian.
The artwork and colours on many of these rescued temples is stunningly well preserved and there was some great stuff to see, but one of the most amazing things about the cruise was the chance to look up and see the stars as there's hardly any pollution and you could actually see the Milky Way with the naked eye.
The two temples at Abu Simbel, the Temple of Ramesses II and the smaller temple of his wife Neferteri, were simply breath-taking and sailing up to them in the cruise ship was an amazing way to see them. Even better, when we were on the ground exploring them we again had very few fellow visitors so we pretty much had them to ourselves at time.
We stuck around to see the light and sound show, which was OK, but the temples themselves were the stars of the show. And the job of moving Abu Simbel from it's former home to its current one is worth a blog post on its own...
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