Aswan, Egypt

I never knew this before visiting Egypt last year, but there are TWO Aswan Dams. And I've visited them both.

The first dam, the Low Dam, built in 1902, sort of controls the floods on the Nile. It's an unremarkable embankment structure that you can drive across without really noticing.

The second dam, the High Dam, completely controls the floods on the Nile; it also creates Lake Nasser, one of the largest man-made lakes in the world, pictured here.


This one produces a lot of power ... but it has also affected Egypt's fertile Nile valley because it completely controls the river's flooding. Without the dam, the Nile would overflow its banks once per year and deposit nutrient-rich silt and soil for growing crops. With the introduction of the Aswan High Dam, that flooding has pretty much stopped ... which means that the river banks no longer get their annual deposit. Soil has been depleted and food production has thus dropped.

Aswan hosts much more than just its dams.



Along the banks of the Nile in Aswan you can see the house that Agatha Christie stayed in while writing "Death on the Nile."


You can see the Nile sailboats, "fallujahs," sailing along.

Absolutely beautiful gardens line the riverbank.

 And the rich build their mausoleums on the hilltops overlooking the eternal Nile. This particular mausoleum belongs to a wealthy gentleman who left a widow behind. The widow was happy to have the company of tourists wanting to visit her husband's beautiful memorial ... until one tourist waltzed into her private home and started taking pictures of her. Needless to say, the property is now closed to the public.





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