I woke up with a jump at 3am this morning for my trip down to Abu Simbel in the morning police convoy. I got dressed and walked down stairs and waited for the convoy vehicle to turn up. We got onto the bus and then waited in traffic for about 45 minutes for the convoy to get going. Once it got going I put my head phones on and watched the sunrise over the desert out the window. No matter how hard I tried, it was too difficult to stay awake and I soon blacked out....

We met another guide and were taken to Aswan airport for our short flight to Abu Simbel. We boarded our Egypt Air flight, a much smaller plane than the one we had arrived on six days ago, which was almost empty. We flew over the dead and desolate desert and over Lake Nasser, which was absolutely amazing. Giant pyramid like landmasses rose from the accidentally manmade lake and I wondered if these landmasses had always looked like this and whether or not this was ...