Surrounded by mythology

When you venture on a trip to the wildest places of Egypt, legends, mystery and myths are all around you. We went there in search of a legendary freshwater predator, one of the mightiest of them all. The biggest ever recorded topped the scale at 516lb in Lake Victoria, while Nasser’s record is a “humble” 329lb….

Yet the Perch was not the only fabled subject of the trip, we really wanted to take advantage of the visit to see some of the temples that have been disassembled from the valley, and reassembled on the highest hills, before the dam was finished and Lake Nasser was created.

We did all this travelling with the Nubiana MV, operated by the guys at www.lakenasseradventures.com, perfectly organized. Simple yet tidy and comfy. The silence of the lake was our travel companion, adding an incredible atmosphere to the trip.

Fishing was average, nothing spectacular but we had our chances and landed some decent fish. Yet, I believe that my friends and I had a truly enjoyable trip, one to be remembered or repeated

Dekka temple

Sunset fishing on the lake

Small Nile Perch

The mother vessel, Nubiana

One of the biggest Nile Perch

Releasing a small fish caught from shore

The hike

Sphinx' Avenue. Es-Subu temple

View of the lake at sunset

Be ready!

Returning from or 4 days trip to the Red Sea we arrived at the mooring around 9 am. Once disembarked the luggage we had a brief time to stretch our legs before breakfast and another 5 hours car trip through the desert.
The massive amount of bait concentrated around the dock was utterly impressive. Millions of tiny sardines gathered and compressed against the walls, and all of the sudden schools of Gold Spotted Trevally and Bluefin Trevally started showing up with a bad attitude.

Everything happened in a blink of an eye. I put my camera to my eye, and sometimes didn’t even have the time to do so, and started firing. No time to change settings, no time to make any slight adjustment, just squeezing the shutter and thanking the D90 for having enough speed. This image isn’t sharp, when you will enlarge it you will see it, but as a friend photographer says, there’s so much going on this photo that who cares about the sharpness…!