Waking up at three in the morning to catch the bus convoy that crosses the barren stretch of southern Egypt to Abu Simbel is more than worth it to view the grandest temple in all of Egypt, the Great Temple of Abu Simbel. It was originally carved out of a mountainside but had to be cut up, transported to higher ground and then reassembled to save it from the rising waters of Lake Nasser. A modern feat of engineering to save an ancient one. Each of the four statues of Ramses II is over 20 meters tall and the colossal nature of this project is one of the things that make it so outstanding. The temple was dedicated to Amun, Ptah, Ra-Harakhaty and the deified Ramses and positioned so the sun hit the inner chamber on the summer solstice. So precise was the construction that the suns rays passed over each god but left Amun, the god of the underworld, in darkness. The first large room inside is covered with scenes commemorating Ramses victory over Ethiopia. A fitting monument on Egypt´s southern border.