Luxor Tour Day

Monday morning our tour bus picked us up at 5:15 a.m. for our 3-hour ride to Luxor with our guide and seven other people.  It was a small group for a full-size motor coach, but we were on the English-speaking tour, and I suppose most of the other tour buses were full of Czech or Russian speakers!  We all had pre-packaged breakfasts from our hotels to eat on the bus, which was really nice.

The pictures through the bus window weren't very clear, but our views were really beautiful.  This is the sun rising across the sea as we opened our breakfast sacks.  

There is some weird glare to the right of the moon, sorry.  But this is some of the desolate scenery we passed through, with the moon rising in the west. 

The surrounding land consisted of sand, dirt, rocks, and the rocky hills in the background. It really felt like we were driving through a movie set for one of the "Star Wars" films, on some remote and lifeless planet.  

Our first stop was at a cafeteria, primarily as a 'smoke break' for our bus driver, we think.  It's a popular place for the tourist buses, and there were many Bedouin children with their donkeys, offering to let tourists pose for pictures.  This was the first of our experiences with Egyptians wanting to sell us something.  There were many other vendors with souvenirs and trinkets to sell - it was a little overwhelming for an early morning stop! 

As we drove through Luxor, we saw many apartment-style houses similar to these.  There were satellite TV dishes on most houses, yet there were donkey carts being used for transportation!  Many, many buildings were obviously unfinished, like the ones at left.  Our tour guide explained two reasons for this.  Most people live in buildings with extended family units, so a man might build a house with the next floor unfinished, intending it for a son when he gets married, then he'd finish that next story and leave another unfinished for the next son later.  The second reason is that owners don't have to start paying taxes on buildings until they are completed, so if they leave the top story only partially built, they avoid the taxes indefinitely!  Ingenious!!  

We passed by many mosques and minarets in Luxor.  We definitely had a 
"We're not in Kansas any more, Toto!"  kind of feeling!!

Crossing the Nile River -- it was wider than we expected.  

Heading outside of Luxor, we passed many places that seemed to be mud brick 'factories'.    This picture captures the process pretty well - first wet down the dirt/sand, then cut out the bricks in grids, and finally stack them to dry in the sun.  

As we headed out of Luxor to the Valley of the Kings, this was the typical scenery we passed through.  More rocks and sand!

The pyramids of Egypt are of course very famous, but since they are located near Cairo, which is not such a safe destination for tourists right now, we did not even attempt to go there.  But the pyramids were basically a huge 'road sign' for grave robbers, leading them to a source of gold, riches, jewels, etc., all of which were plundered ages ago.  Later Egyptian kings wanted to protect their tombs, so they found a very remote, desolate valley for their burials.  The tombs were dug down into the limestone, and the entrances were hidden.  Unfortunately, these later tombs were also plundered through the centuries, all except the famous tomb of King Tutankhamun, which was finally discovered here in the Valley of the Kings in 1922, with its many treasures and King Tut's mummy still intact.  Of course all the contents of the tomb are now in the Cairo museums and touring throughout the world, not still here in the hidden valley near Luxor!  

No cameras were allowed inside the Valley of the Kings, so this is a picture from the parking lot.  This valley was chosen for its remote location as well as because of the naturally-formed pyramid shape at the top right.  The pyramid was a sacred shape for the ancient Egyptians, so this place was a logical choice.  We went into three of the 62 tombs in the valley, and the interior carvings and paintings were remarkable!  

Our next stop was at a family-owned alabaster business.  Alabaster vases and sculptures are very typical for Egypt.  Our demonstration included the man seated at the back, who was taking large chunks of stone and roughly chipping it into a basic shape.  The man to the left showed us how they drill out the hollow centers by hand.  And finally, the alabaster is carefully shaped and hand polished.  

Alabaster comes in white, brown, and green, and the merchandise came in all shapes and sizes.  Real alabaster (as opposed to machine-made fakes), is thin enough that light shines through it, as our demonstration showed.  

Outside, Tim spent some time talking to two of the alabaster workers, who hadn't met any Americans before.  They gave him some pieces of each kind of alabaster as a souvenir.  

Our next stop was at the temple of Hatshebsoot, an Egyptian queen.  She built her temple on the back side of the Valley of the Kings (note the natural pyramid at the top left - the same one seen from the other side in the valley), because she was trying to establish her position as equal to a King of Egypt.  

This is from the entrance to the temple, looking back towards Luxor, next to the Nile.  It was amazing to us how abruptly the sandy, rocky and lifeless desert turned to lush, green fields near the Nile.  

At the entrance to the Temple of Hatshebsoot.  One thing I haven't mentioned was the abundance of really aggressive salesmen everywhere we went.  Between the tour bus door and any tourist destination entrance, it was like being attacked by many men in Arabic robes and turbans trying to sell us postcards, alabaster, papyrus, and other souvenirs.  The nine of us just stayed in one tight group following behind our quick-stepping tour guide, and we'd just say 'nie, d'akujem', ("No, thank you" in Slovak), because they seemed to be even more pushy if they heard us speaking English!

There were many, many paintings and hieroglyphics on the temple walls.  

There were also many courtyards and chambers behind the entrance columns.  The place was much bigger than it looked from the front! 

Tim and an Egyptian king!

Selfie at the Temple of Queen Hatshebsoot!   :-) 

Next stop:  The Colossi of Memnon, which are two giant sculptures of King Amenhotep III dating from 1350 B.C. 

From just beyond Memnon, the terrain was lush and green all the way to the Nile.  Our guide told us that the narrow strip of land watered by the Nile provides almost all the agricultural crops produced in Egypt, and because of the warm climate, they get two harvests per year.  

We had lunch at a large buffet style restaurant that served many tourist buses.  Out the back side, there were several terraces sloping down towards the Nile.  We rode one of these ferry boats across the river - such fun!!

This was an exotic looking pod that I noticed while waiting for the ferry, and then we saw that it was attached to a banana tree!!   A really pretty little green bird was flitting around, but this is the best picture I could get of it.  (I googled it, and this is actually the flower of the banana tree!)

Riding the ferry boat across the Nile River.   

The banks of the Nile behind the boat's wake!

On the other side of the Nile, there was a beautiful river-walk type of park.

We could hardly believe we were in Egypt, on another continent!  It seemed surreal!

Karnak Temple was our next stop, and it was really amazing to see this ancient structure.  After being in Athens last summer and marveling at the Acropolis there, it was even more astounding that this temple was first started about 3,000 years before the Parthenon!!  

Our guide explained how this massive structure was built without the use of technology or machinery.  They built up ramps, higher and higher, so they could continue to add enormous blocks of stone layer, by layer.  

The temple area was added onto for centuries, and it was absolutely huge.  

Some of the statues and columns have been destroyed, but the remaining ones are really impressive!  

A lot of the walls are covered with hieroglyphs.

This is just so I would remember the info later!  (I think there's a typo in the dates in the parenthesis!)  This Great Hypostyle Hall was absolutely massive.  

There were so many columns, and they are ENORMOUS!!!  

It's hard to see it, but it's a scarab sculpture in the foreground.  Walking around it seven times is supposed to bring good luck, so of course I did it!!  ;-)  

Part of the temple grounds includes this man-made lake, filled with water piped in from the Nile.  

Tim was wandering around near a roped-off area, when a gun-toting soldier invited him into the restricted area to see something special.  I hustled over to follow along!!  

Another guy decided to get in on the action.  At this point, I was pretty sure this would be a scam to get some money from the tourists, because everywhere we went, these guys would try to show us something special, then they would ask for money for doing it.  

This is looking back down a dark stairwell after we climbed up to a passageway on top of a building.  

This is the special view we got from the top of the building --- and the two guys were really disappointed in our too-small tip after we climbed back down.   Oh well!  At least Tim finally realized that the people in the tourist areas who are 'just being nice' are really just finagling for a nice monetary compensation for their kindness!!  

Since Beth wasn't with us this time, I posed as a statue on top of an empty column, just like she did last summer during our trip to Athens!      :-)  

This soldier tried to have me follow him to see something special --- but I just wandered around elsewhere on my own, and then later went back to where he was headed, without him in the lead!  

There were a lot of soldiers around, but we think they were more worried about making tips from tourists than about protecting them!  

There were many paintings in these temples too.  

It's hard to capture the immense size of the columns in a picture, but the people in the background give a better perspective.  

Our last stop was at a papyrus store where we had a demonstration on how the ancient Egyptians made their 'paper'.  The green plant at right is papyrus, and the paper construction is shown in the center.  At both the alabaster and papyrus stores, we were offered a welcome drink - hot tea.  There seemed to be an implied expectation that we should buy something, but we just politely looked around and then stepped outside at both places.  It was interesting to see the demonstrations and the products, but the prices were high, and there wasn't anything we really wanted.  

On the way back through Luxor at the end of the day, we passed by some villages on the outskirts.  It's obvious that a lot of donkeys are used to pull carts. 

Some of the donkey carts were even on the highway!  

We finally got back to our resort at about 8:30 p.m., in time for a late dinner in the restaurant.  Our room cleaner had made a towel sculpture of a bunny on our bed!  

What an awesome experience getting to see some of the wonders of Ancient Egypt!!  We are so blessed to expand our adventure to a new continent!!  

Next installment, coming soon :  A Day Snorkeling in the Red Sea!!  Stay tuned!!