The long day continues...

After lunch on the boat, we head out again - by this time, the temperature has increased quite a bit. We first visit the Unfinished Obelisk, which was good exercise in terms of a climb but left us rather hot and sweaty. The girls start a pattern of waiting for us with Mohammed in the cafe (and eating ice-cream) while Sean and I wander around.

The obelisk is pretty cool - it was abandoned in the quarry because of huge cracks that couldn't be repaired, but is now a great learning tool for us to see how these large obelisks were created. The obelisk is outlined by punching deep holes with a harder stone, then wet wood is placed in these holes. Then the workers wait until the wood expands enough to connect all the holes and create a channel. This could take years. The obelisk is then moved on rollers to the Nile, where it's placed on a large raft connected to 16 boats, to balance out the weight. It's moved to its final location, pushed up a ramp in order to stand it up. After it's in place, then the carvers come in to cover the obelisk with hieroglyphics and pictures.

Then we head to a boat that takes us to the Temple of Philae. This temple was also moved, stone by stone, from another lower-lying island after the construction of the High Dam and is dedicated to Isis. It's late afternoon by now, and the breeze is starting to pick up. The temple reliefs are beautiful, but it's colors were greatly damaged over the years as it was repeatedly inundated before being moved.

As our long day draws to a close, we head back to the boat to dress for dinner.