CLINICAL MATTERS

Having made it to Aswan after a grueling 14-hour road trip through the Egyptian Desert, we settled down for the night in our cabins on board the Nile cruise ship the Queen of Sheba. The ship was docked for two nights in Aswan and was scheduled to sail the day after to Kom Ombo temple. We had to get up bright and early for a 4:30 am departure the next day to Abu Simbel which was more than three hours away.

Abu Simbel is the home to two of the most beautiful ancient sites in Egypt, the twin temples of Ramses II and Nefertari. Originally housed along the Nile, these temples were in danger of getting inundated when two dams were placed along the course of the Nile. In an incredible feat of engineering, the United Nations assisted Egypt in moving both temples to a higher elevation above the waterline. The temples, including the imposing statues of Ramses II, were cut into manageable blocks and meticulously reassembled. The reconstructed temples were breathtaking outside and inside, with the statuary guarding exquisite murals and hieroglyphs on the inside walls and the all-important altar at the very end.

It was 5:00 pm by the time we got back to Aswan. We walked for about 20 minutes from our ship to the historic Old Cataract Hotel on the banks of the Nile. This hotel was a favorite of Winston Churchill and other celebrities but it is most famous for being the place where Agatha Christie wrote her novel Death on the Nile. We had high tea at the restaurant and visited the magnificent bar where I had a cocktail fittingly named the Agatha Christie cocktail before turning in for the night.

While we slept, the boat started sailing down the Nile. Upon waking up, I opened the window of our cabin and we were greeted by the calm waters of the river painted in the pastel colors of sunrise. After breakfast, we climbed the deck of the ship and saw that it was now docked at Kom Ombo. Kom Ombo temple has a remarkable structure with a duplicated design since it is dedicated to two sets of gods – the crocodile god Sobek along with Hathor and Khonsu, and the falcon god Haroeris with Tasenetnofret and Panebtawy. This temple was built during the Ptolemaic dynasty which was established by the Macedonian-Greek conquerors after Alexander the Great captured Egypt. Temple decorations included depictions of a remarkably accurate calendar and what looked like medical and surgical tools. The latter were of interest to us doctors, and some of these instruments look very similar to their modern counterparts which show a sophisticated knowledge of medicine from that time period. Some decorations even depicted the medical practitioner washing his hands. There was also a crocodile museum on site which contained an astonishing number of crocodile mummies.

We then went back to our boat for lunch and set sail for Edfu temple. We stayed on the deck as we pulled out from the port of Kom Ombo and enjoyed the brisk morning air and the sunlight on our faces. Egypt at this time of the year is quite cold but we were quite comfortable in our layered clothes. The Temple of Edfu has one of the tallest entrances among the Egyptian temples and is dedicated to the god Horus. We spent some time exploring the well-preserved structures which were previously buried in the sand including a well called the Nilometer which has carved scales on its walls to measure the height of the annual Nile flood.

That night, we set sail for Luxor. It was New Year’s Eve and there was a sumptuous buffet prepared by the boat staff. After our meal, we went to the deck in time to see the boat go into a lock that would safely lower it from the upper Nile to the lower Nile past the dam. Early the next day, we left the boat to go to the Valley of the Kings to greet the first sunrise of 2025 in a hot air balloon. The early morning darkness was punctuated by flashes of light as the balloons were inflated and gas-powered flames snaked from the nozzles to heat the air in the balloons. We climbed into the baskets and took off with dozens of other balloons and we were in the air as the first rays of dawn began to appear on the horizon. In the preternatural stillness of the morning, the sun made its appearance, illuminating this ancient land as it always has for thousands of years. You could almost imagine the mythical Egyptian scarab slowly rolling the ball representing the sun as it emerged from the dead of night, bringing life to the world and ushering in a new day and a new year.

Later that day, we visited both the East and West Banks of the Nile in Luxor where we saw the Karnak and Luxor temples which used to be connected by an avenue lined with sphinxes. We also entered several tombs in the Valley of the Kings, including that of the famed Tutankhamun or King Tut, whose tomb was found nearly intact and contained valuable treasures.

Tutankhamun’s mummy encased in a glass coffin is still in the tomb but most of the objects, including his golden sarcophagus, are in several museums in Egypt and are occasionally lent to other museums around the world. We also stopped by the temple of Hatshepsut, who had the distinction of being one of only two female Pharaohs of Egypt. We returned to the Karnak temple that night to see it come alive with a light and sound show and we retired to our boat for our last overnight stay on the Nile.

The next morning, we flew from Luxor to Cairo and arrived with enough time to explore the newly opened Grand Museum of Egypt. The building has a great view of the Pyramids of Giza and has an amazing design filled with endless galleries of artifacts. Seeing the different exhibits served as a nice summary of everything we had seen in our travels and our previous journey gave the displayed objects more meaning and context after having seen where they had come from. Next was a three-hour drive to Alexandria for the final leg of our Egyptian trip. I will tell the story of the treasures of Alexandria in my next column. It is hard to believe that there was so much more we could see after what we had already experienced but the city named after Alexander the Great holds its own in terms of wonders in this magnificent and ancient land.