Cairo to Luxor Saturday 26 January.
Up early this morning, we woke up at 3 am. We had packed last night so just had to finish off. We have breakfast at 4 am. We leave the hotel at 5.50 and head off to the airport. Traffic very light at this hour. We have a short (50 mins) flight and arrive at Luxor. After collecting our bags we head off to Karnak temple. Luxor is very different to Cairo, much less inhabitants (450,000 compared to 20 million), cleaner and less cars. The security is the same though, police/military at all tourist sites. Karnak is an extraordinary place, massive structure over a large area. The columns 134 of them are spectacular and the area grew with each succeeding King building on to it for over 2000 years. It had lain under silt and sand for thousands of years until it was discovered. There is an avenue of sphinxes that stretches from Karnak temple to Luxor temple and they are still trying to uncover it completely, because other buildings had been constructed above with no knowledge of what lay underneath and now have to be demolished.
We then move on to a papyrus making demonstration. Very informative with a hard sell at the end. We bought a small papyrus of the tree of life.
Our next stop is Luxor temple. Another spectacular sight. Half way up the structure is a Mosque which seems very strange, but the Mosque was built at what was then ground level unaware of the structure they were building on. There is also a temple built by Alexander the Great as he wanted to be a pharaoh. The fine detail work in the characters is remarkable as it was on granite a super hard stone.
After this we head off to our Nile river barge the Sonesta Moon Goddess. We book in and then have a lovely lunch. The barge looks a bit worn and dated but appears comfortable enough. We have an optional tour which Ann is keen to do, a horse drawn carriage around the back streets of Luxor. The tour starts with a bus ride back to downtown Luxor and then we head off with four other carriages. Our driver looks to be in his 90s but the horse knows where to go. It is very interesting and noisy! Cars, buses and trucks are continually using their horns to either tell other vehicles to look out I coming through. Then there are the motor bikes dodging in and out and pedestrians walking all over the roads and in between traffic.
The people are really friendly though waving and saying hello and all the kids want you to wave back to them. We travel through some very narrow lane ways and there are markets selling fruit, vegetables, clothes and everything else. It is so narrow that the carriage wheels are almost running over some of the merchandise, but the people just accept it. Just before the end of the ride we stop for some mint tea and a shisha pipe try for anyone who wants to have a go. Ann puts up her hand and she is very competent at it. Who would believe?
We get back to the barge around 6 and tonight we have a belly dancer and Whirling Dervishers.
The belly dancer was more of a boob thruster than a belly dancer. She did three songs and two and a half would have been enough. She was followed by a whirling dervisher and he was fantastic. It wasn’t the religious type one where they are dressed in white robes and just spin he was colourfully dressed and performed with small flat baskets which he twirled and spun around his head. At one part he had flashing lights going on his costume. It was incredible how fast he spun. A great performance.
Tomorrow we head off to the valley of the kings and then we are to start our cruise down the Nile.
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