July 19 - Egypt: Luxor
IT WAS 112 DEGREES TODAY!!!
Breakfast
Oh I love this hotel. It's divine. We went down to breakfast early so that we could enjoy it. Oh my - what a variety it was! Eggs, pancakes, fruits, veggies, breads, rolls, muffins, juices. Yesterday we had bread for breakfast - today we ate like kings! After breakfast we rolled our very fat tummies over to the American Express office to meet our tour guide. We decided to do the "short tour" of the East Bank of Luxor today, and to wake up early tomorrow to do the longer West Bank Tour before the worst of the heat hits.
Temple of Karnak
Our guide Mostafa is about 50 and knows his Egyptian history. What an amazing day we had! He could answer any question we had about anything, and knows almost every inch of these ruins. The Temple of Karnak was a huge, beautiful complex of sanctuaries, kiosks, pylons, and obelisks, all dedicated to Theban gods, who were also Egypt's rulers. From Lonely Planet: "Everything here is on a gigantic scale: the site measures about 1.5km by 800m, large enough to contain about 10 cathedrals, while the first pylon is twice the size of the one at Luxor Temple. Built, added to, dismantled, restored, enlarged and decorated over a period of nearly 1500 years, Karnak was on of the most important place s of worship in all Egypt during the height of Theban power and was called 'The Most Perfect Places' (Ipet-Isut)".
We walked around Karnak, with Mostafa pointing out the beautiful inscriptions, colors, and significance of the ruins. He also told us which king put up which wall and columns and when. We learned so much information that I can't even remember most of it. Suffice it to say that it's incredible to imagine that a temple of this size and structure must have taken years and years to build - but that it was probably also absolutely beautiful. Some of the original colors were still visible over 6000 years later. It's unbelievable that this temple was once partially buried under sand and people lived on top and around it. There is graffiti on many of the walls from the 1700s and 1800s where men carved their names as if it were a bathroom wall.
Here we are at the Temple of Karnak
Luxor Temple
After Karnak, we went to the smaller but just as incredible Luxor Temple. "Built by the New Kingdom pharaoh Amenophis III, the Luxor Temple is a strikingly graceful piece of architecture on the banks of the Nile. Originally joined to Karnak by an avenue of Sphinxes, the temple sits on the site of an older sanctuary dedicated to the Theban triad of Amun, Mut, and Khons." At the front of the Temple are two huge statues - two of six according to Mostafa. We know there were six because one of the walls inside the temple has a carving of the front of the temple with all the statues intact. I'm starting to think that - to be an archeologist - one has to like jigsaw puzzles.
At one part of the temple, Alexander the Great rebuilt a shrine to include himself as one of the Egyptian Rulers and therefore a deity as well. The shrine depicts reliefs of himself being presented to Amun, and has his name in hieroglyphics. The detail was incredible, and I thought this was particularly interesting that Alexander - as a conqueror - would actually embrace a culture instead of trying to destroy it. Mostafa said it was because he found the religion so much like his own Greek religion and Gods that he decided to use it to unify his various kingdoms. This place is so cool.
Here we are at Luxor Temple
It's 100 times nicer to do this with a guide. First of all, he knows much more information than we would get from the 3 pages of Lonely Planet text. Second, we have an arranged car ride to and from the sights. Finally - and most important - we don't get hassled or cheated with Mostafa around. He knows all the guards at the sights and they all tell us how great he is (which is true). So despite the extra money it costs to have a guided tour, there's NO WAY we would have enjoyed these sights as much without Mostafa.
AmEx To the Rescue (Again)
Afterwards, we went back to the AmEx office to talk to Emil about our trip to Sharm El Sheihk. When we first got to Cairo, Jon and I strategized our trip through Aswan and Luxor and into Hurghada via bus, where we will catch a ferry to Sharm El Sheihk. I say strategized because the ferry only runs 3 times a week so we had to figure out how many days we wanted in Aswan and Luxor versus days of diving in Sharm. We opted for more time diving and thus the whirl-wind tours of Aswan and Luxor. We also had to plan around train schedules and bus trips, but all-in-all we did a pretty darn good job and were quite impressed with our own ingenuity and frugality.
Well, we were wrong about the ferry trip.
Apparently, our plans cause us to miss the ferry by an entire day because of different summer hours. Lonely Planet didn't have this information so we were going to be quite bummed when we arrived there. So it looks like we have to bite the bullet to fly to Sharm, or else miss 3 days of diving and go on a later ferry. Which we're not willing to do. So we hung out at AmEx with Emil and made our arrangements. Despite our cash and exchange issues with AmEx over the last month, the company is back in our graces!
Kushari Lunch
Lunch was at a nearby place called Sayyida Zeinab, which is one of Luxor's best kushari joints. Kushari is a mix of noodles, rice, black lentils, fried onions and tomato sauce. The ingredients are served together in a bowl (small, medium, or large) for sit-down meals or spooned into a plastic bag for takeaway. Jon and I opted for the sitting meal and were quite surprised at how good it was.
The Pool
After running around doing stuff (Internet Cafe, bookstore, etc) we hit the Winter Palace Pool. Oh why can't we travel like this all the time? The pool came complete with a swim-up pool bar, fountain, and a cabana boy to lay out our towels for us. (Clearly, we can't possibly do that on our own, daaaahhling). We swam for a bit and then lay around on our cushiony lounge chairs. Then we made our way into the room to shower and to get an early dinner before the Karnak Light Show.
Ali Baba Cafe
We were the only people at the Ali Baba Cafe, which is understandable because it was 6:30, the cafe is outside, and no rational person is out in this god-forsaken heat but the stupid Americans. But we wanted an early dinner before the light show because we're getting up early tomorrow morning for the West Bank tour. Anyway, while we were sitting there waiting for dinner, our spirits getting lower and lower because of the oppressive heat and the ants crawling on our feet. So I looked at Jon who wasn't talking and said, "You know, we've already seen 2 light shows and we did Karnak this afternoon. I could be swayed against doing the Karnak Light Show." 5 minutes later we decided to bag it. So we ate our rather awful food and ran away from the ant-infested garden. Then we hit an internet cafe again and did some shopping. I got a beautiful Egyptian scarf and Jon got ice cream (that's fair, right?). We were asleep by 10:00.