Monday, February 25, 2008 Luxor

The Long Goodbye to Cairo and Hellow to Luxor in 'the Valleys of the Tourists' (Valley of the Queens and Valley of the Kings)

(this is a jointly written blog between JoAnn and I as it's getting harder to remember what happened day to day and also she writes much more eloquently than I do - Jamie)
3:30AM came awfully early (our breakfast call)-just as the street merry-makers across from our hotel finally settled down. As the sun was coming up, we flew up-river on Egyptian Air to Luxor, about 500 miles to the south of Cairo. Luxor in the early morning was beautiful and cool with dessert and tropical flora. We could sense the difference in pace (from Cairo)as we left the plane and even before we left the airport.

Spread across 100 acres, the Temple of Karnak is the very old palace of the Royal Egyptian family. Composed of 20 smaller temples and shrines, it has a great hall of pillars designed with floral motifs and an entrance processional lined with statues of lions. The front was flanked by an obelisk (which used to be one of a pair - the other now resides in the Place de la Concorde in Paris) and a statue of Ramese and his daughter.

Luxor grew out of the ruins of Thebes, which was once the capital of Etypt's New Kingdow (1550-1069BC). We were dwarfed but impressed by the gigantic columns - kind of like being in the Sequoias. Built by many pharaohs, succeeding pharaohs changed the anems on the statues to their own, once they took over the throne. Karnak (kind of makes you think of Johnny Carson, doesn't it?) was built as a temple and chapels to Amen (the God in Southern Egypt) rather than the sun god, Ra.

After th eTemples of Karnak and Luxor, we visited the Lusor museum, which includes the treasures of the temples and tombs, including a couple of mummies. One looks lke the next as far as JoAnn and I are concerned. One of the mummies somehow (stolen) took a detour to Niagara Falls, Canada but has since been returned to Egypt.


Now we have embarked on the Sonestra St George, which is a fairly luxurious ship and our home for the next few days. The showers are even more impressive - more about that later after we figure out how to turn on the water.
After lunch on the ship, we visited Luxor Temple. I was surprised to see that excavation is still going on at so many sites that we have visited, including Luxor. I guess that was my ignorance. Construction started on the temple in 1414BC by Amenhotel III with additions made by succeeding rulers (including Alexander the Great) until 323 BC.

Because of our early rising, we were exhausted and after dinner, decided to call it a night as we still had to figure out the showers. I was sidetracked by the belly dancing in the bar (photo op!) but only managed to take a few hundred photos before succumbing to exhaustion.

When I got back to the room, Bill said that he had figured out the shower controls however managed to get soaked while explaining them to me...of course it was my fault. Ha! Wish I'd had a photo of that Kodak moment.