It’s dark outside our balcony as the alarm wakes us at 4.20am, but dawn is breaking as we get the ferry across the Nile to the Movenpick jetty on the east bank, painting the sky in beautiful colours. Sure enough our Nubian King, Ahmed, is waiting for us and we are driven back to Aswan airport for our early morning flight towards the border with Sudan. 

The airport is filling fast and men and women are separated into different queues to pass through security checks. Most of us are due to board the same plane for our thirty minute flight at 13000 feet across Lake Nasser and the desert, and as we come into land we get a fantastic aerial view of our destination, the UNESCO wonders that are the Temples of Rameses II at Abu Simbel. 

In the arrivals hall we meet Mr Assem, our Nasco tours rep, and are taken straight to a people carrier that whisks us just a ten minute drive to the fabled site. On the way Mr Assem tells us that the villagers of Abu Simbel fish the lake for tilapia, perch and crocodile and are one of the first stops for the trucks we see crossing over from Sudan, just a few dozen miles further south. But of course, a lot of their trade is tourism and the 9000 inhabitants must be one of the smallest populations on earth to have their own airport terminal.  

Once through the entrance gates to the temple we see the coaches that have arrived after a long and bumpy four-hour drive across the desert from Aswan, carrying groups of tourists who are starting to flood the site. It’s still barely 8.30am and we’re very glad that we’re not having to cope with an eight hour round trip for just over an hour’s worth of sightseeing. Ah, but what sights though!

While the temple complex is pretty busy, apparently it’s nothing compared with the weekend crowds, and we’re lucky to have our very own tour guide, Whaled, who Mr Assem introduces us to. While the tour groups all follow their leaders around, we go at our own pace, listening to his explanations of all that we are seeing. 

The temples were originally constructed 3200 years ago between 1264-1244BC during Rameses II’s reign to trumpet his god-like status and wonderful achievements at the Battle of Kadesh, where he triumphed over the Hittites in modern day Syria. At the time the Nile flowed through here creating a lush green paradise which was a jewel in the Nubian empire.

The Great Temple of Rameses II lay on its east bank, with four colossal representations of him flanking the entrance, with a frieze of 24 baboons - associated with the sun god Ra as they shriek at dawn to welcome him - above the statues, and was carved completely out of the side of a mountain. 

Similarly the smaller accompanying temple to the goddess Hathor and his beloved Queen Nefertari, also featuring four statues of Rameses at the entrance, along with two of Nefertari and mini representations of their six children, was carved in one piece and both have chambers leading deep inside, with columned and decorated Hippostyle Halls and further rooms beyond them. 

Depictions of Rameses II as a god, warrior, priest and lover, complete with erect penis, are carved and painted everywhere. He had 24 wives and over 100 children but Nefertari was his one true love and for him to build a temple dedicated to her was a truly rare honour. These monuments were to symbolise their eternal fame and the crowds of tourists thronging here today certainly worship at their celebrity, jostling for photos and queuing to enter the inner sanctums. 

The money shot everyone wants inside is of the four seated statues of Rameses flanked on his left by the sun god Amon Ra, and on his right by the gods Ra-Horakhty and Ptah. The temples were constructed with such precision that on February 22nd (Rameses’ birthday) and October 22nd (his coronation day) a shaft of sunlight penetrates straight through the temple and illuminates him, and the gods Amon Ra and Ra Horakthy beside him, confirming Rameses II’s status as a great god, but with a genius of accuracy, the sunlight never touches Ptah, who was the god of darkness. 

It’s a miracle of ancient engineering and yet Abu Simbel is also miracle of modern technology too. It remained preserved for millennia by the sand that eventually covered it but in 1813 a Swiss researcher Johann Ludwig Burckhart rediscovered it and four years later he and Italian explorer Gianni Belzoni began excavations. But in 1960 construction on the High Dam at Aswan  started and the rising waters of Lake Nasser began to threaten many of the monuments and temples of the Nubian empire, including Abu Simbel. 

The Egyptian government requested international help to move and preserve the Great Temples of Rameses II and this was achieved during 1964-1968. The entire temple complex was carved up and raised 25 metres, piece-by-piece and a new artificial mountain, looking exactly like the original edifice, was created to house it in. Even more impressively, they managed to preserve the magic of the sunlight falling directly on Rameses in his inner sanctum on his chosen dates, although the precessional movement of the earth has altered its exact timing from three millennia ago. 

Sadly one of the other forced movements due to the creation of Lake Nasser came with the displacement of the 100,000 Nubians who had traditionally lived in this land for millennia. More than 40 settlements were flooded and they were forcibly moved further up the Nile, leading to their dispersal throughout Egypt and losses to their culture. Some Nubian families however, who were displaced decades before by the creation of the first British Dam in 1902, were settled on Elephantine Island and surroundings and still preserve their way of life, inviting tourists to visit them, which we aim to do shortly. 

Once we emerge from Nefertari’s temple we head up the hill to meet Whaled once more, waiting expectantly for his tip, and then make our way through the never-ending souvenir stalls, until Mr Naseem meets us and whisks us back to the airport. En route he produces a bag of falafels in pitta for us, which is a nice touch, and gets us waved through the security checkpoints, waving and smiling at the policemen as we go. 

“You know everyone,” comments Coman. “Oh yes,” he replies. “That man there I play dominos with. Last night I beat him so I was teasing him.  He was smoking drugs so it was easy to win!”

“But he’s a policeman,” says Coman. 

“Only in the day. At night he is my friend. And he smokes drugs,” laughs Mr Assem. 

At the airport we get chatting to a couple of tour leaders who say they are so happy to hear my accent. “Where have all the British gone?” they ask. “We used to have so many visitors from Britain but now nobody comes. Why have you stopped coming to see our wonderful country?”

Since the uprisings of 2011 and 2013, British tourism has plummeted to Egypt, with the exception of package holidays to the Red Sea. While American, Canadian, Australian, French, German, Italian, Asian and South American tourists are here in droves - with huge numbers of Spanish tourists in particular - we meet only a handful of British tourists, and no Irish ones, at all. 

“Please tell people to come back. It’s so safe here. Why do the British stay away? We miss you!” they say. It really is a mystery. We can’t recommend Egypt highly enough. 

Our flight back is swift and smooth and we’re back at the hotel before 1pm, swimming and relaxing by the pool. Later that afternoon we get dressed up in linen shirt and trousers and take the boat back across to Aswan, and walk twenty minutes or so down the Corniche to the famous Old Cataract Hotel where we’ve reserved a table for sunset cocktails. 

We’re greeted by guest host Ramadan who takes us through the Library and opulent bar, down through the gardens to the spectacularly situated Promenade Bar to sip margaritas and watch the feluccas sail around the southern tip of Elephantine Island. 

It really is magnificent and very tranquil, seated opposite the ancient ruined temple on the island, imagining ourselves as Edwardian explorers or characters in ‘Death On The Nile’. And as a special treat, usually reserved only for VIP residents of the hotel, Ramadan arranges for his excitable young colleague Mohammed to give us a guided tour of both the Agatha Christie suite, where she wrote most of ‘Death On the Nile’ while she stayed in opulent splendour, and the Winston Churchill suite. 

Both suites are identical in size and have outdoor spaces with incredible views of the glorious sunset, but Winston’s grand entertaining terrace definitely outstrips Aggie’s more straightforward balcony. We wonder if they were ever guests at the same time. 

Mohammed also leads us along what is called the Legendary Corridor full of photos of celebrities and royalty who have stayed through the years including Omar Sharif, Queen Noor of Jordan, Francois Mitterrand, the Aga Khan, Princess Diana and many more. At the end of the corridor is the huge and splendid, Michelin-starred 1902 restaurant, built to commemorate the opening of the British Dam, where it played host to heads of state, dignitaries and royalty from around the world. 

It’s not open tonight, so we get a private tour, playing the grand piano, pretending to take calls on the antique phones and sitting at tables. Afterwards Mohammed, who is studying French art and literature at Aswan University, and also speaks perfect English too, asks us to write a review of the hotel on TripAdvisor mentioning him. “I need a promotion!” he says, and we’d happily give him one. 

It’s dark by the time we leave the hotel and we walk down to the nearby Koti public ferry, where for £5 Egyptian - 17p - we cross over to the south side of Elephantine Island and meander through the dirt streets and alleyways of the Nubian villages. There are no cars allowed and everything has a ramshackle air, especially in the dark with the odd light for illumination here and there. Men gather in mosques while women sit chatting outside houses, giving us directions to find our destination. Dogs lope past us, and cheerful children run around playing in bare feet and shouting hello at us. 

Some shops are still open but most day trippers have headed back to their hotels in Aswan and business is quiet in the night. We pass carpet shops and food stalls but get drawn into a shack with silk, cotton and linen scarves on display and a man working the loom to create them. We resist the sales pitch but have a happy chat with the owner and carry on our way, eventually stumbling upon the restaurant we’ve chosen tonight, courtesy of a quick reviews check via Google Maps. 

The Bob Marley Guesthouse is a pretty basic hostel, with a washing machine by its entrance and eight little rooms on the first floor where backpackers lay their heads for the night. It’s a world away from the Movenpick, which is actually now just yards away, surrounded by walls in an impenetrable compound. On the roof of the hostel is the well-reviewed restaurant and we climb up multiple stairs to the terrace where we are given a warm welcome and a table overlooking the city lights of Aswan across the Nile. 

There’s a few fellow diners, travellers from Asia, Europe and the US, some solo and some in couples. Everyone seems chilled and a mega mix of Bob Marley hits is playing. The Rastafarian culture is of course intrinsic to the Nubian area with Ethiopia, Sudan and Eritrea all to the south, and Marley is revered as a messenger of peace and good vibes by many of the more laidback community. 

We are presented with a super cheap, but utterly delicious feast of vegetable tagines, rice, dips, salad, tahini, bread and beer, and it’s one of the best meals we have in the whole of our trip. The evening glides along and we feel very relaxed indeed, especially when they agree to sell us a bag of beers to take away with us for a sunset felucca trip tomorrow. 

We wander down to the little jetty a couple of houses down the road and take a 17p ferry back to the east bank of the Nile and then walk up to the Movenpick guest ferry to transfer back to the hotel. It’s a bit of a ludicrous journey as without the wall blocking the way we would have been able to walk straight into the hotel grounds from Bob Marley’s, but it all adds to the adventure. And what an adventure today has been!