Luxor, Egypt - May 15

colonade Medinet Habu temple

Luxor, Egypt is something else!  Luxor is not on the coast, so we had a 3 hour drive from the ship with our guide Ahmed who will be with us until we board the ship again in 3 days.  We stayed in Luxor overnight and will be flying to Cairo the next day for the Pyramids.  This was not in the original plans when we booked the cruise before the Egyptian revolution, but this was the only way we were going to get to the Pyramids.  We could have chosen to stay on the ship and hit another Egyptian port, but we opted for Cairo.
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Medinet Habu temple

Colossi of Memnon

The area until right before Luxor was desert and mountains as it has been yesterday, but as we approached Luxor the landscape began to lush up.  By the time we were in Luxor there were palm trees, grass and crops.  My first sight of the Nile was very surprising.  It is a beautiful clean ‘looking’ bright blue.  I expected it to look dirty – it doesn’t.



Hatshepsut temple



painted ceiling



We had lunch and were off to The Valley of the Kings which is where 63 (that have been found so far) pharaohs including King Tut, tombs are.  Absolutely no photos are allowed.  One entry ticket gets the visitor into any 3 tombs – there is a separate ticket for King Tut.  Of the 4 tombs we visited, King Tut’s was the most impressive as his mummy (surprisingly tiny) and sarcophagus were there.  Each tomb consisted of an entrance way fully decorated with hieroglyphs and Egyptian stories.  No guide explanation is allowed inside any of the tombs,  The guide explained outside the tomb and we visited after.  However…each tomb has a guard who will try to give ‘extra’ information or give you a ‘special look’ and will then ask you for a tip.  One person on our tour got roped into this and was OK giving a dollar when the guide asked for 5!  Crazy.  We don’t tend to give off the ‘weakest-in-the-pack’ vibe, so we are generally left alone by the hawkers and others looking for a buck.  The hawkers by the way, aren’t as aggressive as in India.

Nile from our Luxor Hotel

After the Valley of the Kinds we made 2 photo stops; one at Hatshepsut temple and the other at the Colossi of Memnon - I realize I need to have people in these photos to show the scale...let's just say they were huge.  Scale can kind of be seen from the cordon around them - the stakes are about a meter high.  There are all within Luxor.  Our final stop for the day was for a visit to Medinet Habu temple.  This temple was built by Ramses III on the west bank of the Nile.  This is a huge place (not unlike other Ancient Egypt temples.)  Every single bit of surface except for the floor is decorated with carvings or paint.  The paint has not stood the test of time as well as the carvings have, but there is still quite an impressive amount of paint still visible 3000 years later.  The temple was the last of our sight seeing for the day. 

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Chris and Mosab

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Lisa and Mosab

this is new...

We were staying at a hotel on the Nile.  At this part of the river there is a wall rather than a bank at the edge.  Our room had a wonderful view as did most of the hotel’s facilities.  The hotel’s shisha bar was located right at the edge of the Nile which made a spectacular spot to spend some time.  This spot was made even better because we were the only ones there.  I suspect our group of 80 were the only ones in the hotel.