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The unintended sixish hour drive to Luxor was great minus all the speed bumps in our worn out minibus. The stops at the Temple of Kom Ombo and especially the Temple of Horus in Edfu were a real bonus.
Thank you felucca captain for sleeping in and making me miss my train. I owe you one.
Kom Ombo is a Greco-Roman temple from the 2nd century BC split for two gods; the Falcon God and the Crocodile God. Bummer the crocodile museum was closed. It evidently houses 40 crocodile mummies and I find that more interesting than human mummies for some reason.
The Temple of Horus at Edfu was buried in sand and silt for nearly 2000 years. It is considered the best preserved Ptolemaic temple in Egypt, built in 237 BC (no I really don't know what Ptolemaic means, I read it).
Due to my train issue and the temple stops I arrived late for my intended tour in Luxor. Again it worked out better. The most organized "guide" yet met me at the hotel and went over my agenda. We postponed the Valley of the kings tour to the following day which meant a long next day but gave me the afternoon to walk Luxor and be constantly hassled by carriage drivers. One followed me for almost 30 minutes while I tried to escape the tourists (and touts) into the residential areas. I put some good miles on and circled back around to the Luxor temple and market.
I still needed to buy a mask for my wall and found a mostly empty market with any souvenir I would want. In fact the person/shop that caught my eye had piles of dusty masks, statues, cups, etc.
He asked several times as he pulled masks out of various piles if I wanted something "old". After several language barrier moments he called to a friend who took me down another alley into a 8'x10' room where someone was knocking bricks out of a wall into another space?? "Brick Smasher" paused while my vendor cleared off the top of a dirty wood trunk and started showing me "old" items. Statues, cups, carvings, coins, etc. Roman coins?! I hope they are real! I had a stack of six picked out and a few other items but he wanted too much money (in retrospect I should have bought all I could carry). I left with the mask (cheap knockoff) four Roman coins and a small pink granite falcon god statue. Can't wait to have them assessed.
Walked back to the hotel which was a rarity in Egypt; Christian owned so there was a bar. Wahoo! I had a few beers with the Swedish guys and were joined by Kirk the old, drunk Canadian that spent the night trying to convince us Canada was better then everyone, at everything. I gave up teasing him at about 11:30 and headed for bed. Why??
Well, When I met the guide earlier he mentioned a sunrise hot air balloon tour option beginning at 5:30. For ~$50 I could not turn it down and it became a highlight of the trip. My day worked out something like this:
5:00A wake up call, 5:20 Van Pickup.
Ride to boat across Nile, van to balloon launch.
Sunrise from hot air balloon over temples! Back to hotel.
8:00A Catch tour van to Valley of Kings & Queens, Hatshepsut temple.
1:00p Back to hotel for break & backpack.
Quick walk to Luxor temple for pictures.
3:00 Van pickup for E. Bank tour of Karnak & Luxor temples.
6:30P Dropped at train station for Cairo train
7:30P ~Eight hour train ride to Cairo
3:30A (29th) Get off at wrong train station, cab to correct one (damn)
4:20A Arrive at Cairo hotel - long damn day.
Like I said the balloon ride was a highlight of the trip. Basically we hovered over all I was to visit during the morning tour. Aerial views & pictures of Hatshepsut, valley of kings and various other temples. The amazing thing is the number of temples they have not had the funds to dig out yet. From the air you can see exactly where they are and he government recently finished relocating residents to begin clearing the mounds of sand to unearth these discoveries. Wow!
The Valley of the Kings was also great but no photography is allowed. We toured three tombs that are still very much intact. This is where King Tuts tomb was discovered complete in 1922. No new discoveries have really been made since. Discovered ancient records indicate 66 kings were buried here and only 22 tombs have been discovered.
Hatshepsut is very intact and was good to see but too many tourists here. My best pictures of this temple was from the air. Queen Hatshepsut had this designed for her so she could tunnel through to the Valley of the Kings for her burial. The Queen received power when her hubby (and half brother) died and her son was an infant. She shipped him off to Giza so she could rule and she dressed and ruled as a man so the people would follow her. It helped that she bribed the high priests to say she was really a "son of the Gods" and not really a woman. Her son, Tuthmosis, returned around 18 years of age angry about being sent away and took over the reign. He spent his life erasing any mention of his mothers name from temples and history. Angry lil feller!
The largest and most complete temple was the Temple of Amun in Luxor. The Great Hypostyle Hall has 134 giant columns. Each ruler from the 11th to the 19th dynasty added to the temple. A row of giant rams line one entry. A row of Sphinxes that line a road all the way to the Luxor Temple were being excavated before the government shutdown. An amazing site that pictures cannot do justice...as is the case for most of Egypt.
A little sleep and a car tour of Cairo and the Cairo Museum scheduled for the remainder of my December 29th.
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