It was a really early morning with a 4:00am wake-up call. We had to be at the Hollywood Theater, our normal excursion meeting place, by 5:15. The buffet opened early to accommodate the schedule, so we had a “hearty breakfast” as instructed. It’s still Ramadan and eating in public places wasn’t going to be an option. We were also given a box lunch for some reason, even though we would be having a buffet lunch later. Upon inspection, the only edible things in there were the orange and banana so I was glad for the lunch.
Our port city was Safaga, and the city of Luxor where we were going is a good 3-1/2 hour bus ride away. On the way, our local guide, Mona, kept us busy with information about our destination and by selling us jewelry. Lynda and I both bit, and bought silver cartouche pendant necklaces with Egyptian symbols. Lynda has previously done an extensive tour in Egypt and so everything on today’s schedule she has already seen.
Egypt is working hard to get their tourism back up to pre-2011 numbers when it dropped off radically due to civil unrest. Our 11 buses convoyed to Luxor with a police escort, and each bus had armed security on board. We went through many security checkpoints along the way also. Despite, or because of, all of that I never once didn’t feel safe. I would have liked to take some photos at the checkpoints, but we were warned explicitly not to take any pictures of the police. One of the funny things I did take a photo of was, at each end of the checkpoints there were towers with machine guns in them. However, when you looked behind the gun, there wasn’t anyone there. They were just wired in place.
The first part of the drive was a barren desert. We eventually came to the occasional town, but most of the journey was through agricultural areas. To say they weren’t up to the modern practices of U.S. farms is an understatement. Most of the work we saw was being done by hand with donkey drawn carts hauling the harvest. There were old tractors being used in some cases, but it certainly wasn’t by the majority of farmers. The crops are sugar cane, corn, wheat, bananas, and millet. Surprisingly, I didn’t see any camels during the entire drive.
The canal we drove along is supplied by the Nile (which we would see later) and multi-tasked for swimming, fishing, watering fields, and trash disposal (unfortunately). Most of the homes were made from brown mud bricks and often topped with thatched roofs. The rebar sticking up out of most of the homes remains a mystery to me.
We finally made it to one of the highlights of our cruise, the Karnak Temple, one of the greatest places of worship in Egyptian history. We knew we were getting close when we crossed over the mile long avenue of ram-headed sphinxes connecting the Karnak Temple and the Luxor Temple. Unfortunately, because of the convoy, all of our buses arrived at Karnak at the same time, making for a very crowded entry.
Pharaohs added on to the original temple for 2000 years, making the size of it truly impressive. It seems like every surface is covered in hieroglyphics. On the inside and the underside of structures that weren’t exposed to direct sunlight the hieroglyphics still even had color. I could only imagine what the whole place must have looked like in its day.
After Karnak we headed to a local hotel for lunch. We passed the Luxor Temple on the way, and I would have loved to stop and see that too. It really looked amazing. As we were driving to our next stop after lunch, we saw more ruins sites along the way. I think I remember our guide saying that Egypt has 1/3 of all ancient ruins in the world. That’s not hard to believe from what I saw just in this one day.
So our second stop was the Valley of the Kings. I didn’t really expect much here, thinking Karnak was going to be the highlight of Egypt. I was pleasantly surprised. Personally, I like the Valley of the Kings even better than Karnak, but maybe it was just because I wasn’t expecting to.
The Valley of the Kings has 64 pharaohs’ tombs. At least that’s what has been uncovered. This is where King Tutankhamun’s tomb is (King Tut). I had a chance to pay extra to go into that tomb, but I asked Lynda her opinion about it, and decided to skip it since, like always, our time would be limited. With our pass we were able to choose 3 royal tombs to go into and we saw Ramses IV, Ramses III, and Tausert/Setnakht. I had to pay $18 extra to be able to take photos, but it was soooo worth it.
Did I mention it was hot today? Like really hot. Our driver said his thermometer read 48 degrees Celsius. Again, not sure of the conversion, but I’m guessing around 117. I drank lots of water and wore my straw hat, but especially at the Valley of the Kings, the heat was oppressive.
We’ve officially hit the halfway mark through our trip. We’ve been to some amazing places so far, and we still have so many crazy awesome places left to go. We’re having the time of our life, and are cherishing every day. The pace will really be picking up now with a lot fewer sea days.
The houses with the rebar and columns are for adding another story in the future. Saw the same thing in Peru. Too expensive to do all that when you decide to expand later!