Aswan High Dam & The Temple of Philae

ASWAN HIGH DAM

Building of the Aswan High Dam was started in 1960 and completed in 1967 and is now a resource that is heavily protected by the Egyptian (there were lots of security towers around and we weren't meant to use zoom lenses to take photos). The dam was built because the Nile would alternate between flooding and drought so the dam would regulate this as well generate electricity.

PS It's called the High Dam because the first dam that was built was inadequate and overflowed a couple of times so after raising it once and still having it overflow, they decided to build a second dam, called the High Dam (the old one is now called the Low Dam).

TEMPLE OF PHILAE

This temple was pretty cool - it involed catching a ferry out to a picturesque little island - but get this - the entire temple was moved here, piece by piece between 1977 and 1980 because the Island of Philae (the temple's original home) was almost always underwater after the Aswan Dam was built.

The ferry ride over

Hani, our tour guide doing his thing...