Flying to Luxor

This morning…and I do mean MORNING, 2 am we had a wake up call and had our bags picked up promptly at 2:25. We checked out of the hotel and went down to breakfast. The tour company arranged for us to have breakfast early to accommodate our early schedule and flight. We went to the Cairo airport and boarded the Egypt Air flight to Luxor. Airport security is a lot different than that of American security. We had our bags x-rayed but did not have to de-belt, de-liquid, de-metal, de-laptop ourselves…nice, but also scary. This however, was not as scary as once we got on the flight this morning, the captain got on to give us the morning take off message. First of all it was obviously in Arabic which makes sense since that is the official language here, and the voice was very deep, words all spoken as one long run-on sentence and very spooky-like. It was like that voice could be in a horror movie- I am not kidding….I wonder if that is how foreigners feel in the USA. What an interesting perspective to think about.

We got to Luxor and the airport was quite small and it was a breeze to get our bags and be on our way. From the moment we touched down, it was 100 times better (meaning cleaner, cleaner, friendlier, cleaner, less people…) than Cairo. Before we went to our cruise boat, we visited the temple of Karnak. This was by far our favorite part of the trip so far. The temple is huge and is such good shape for how old it is. The obelisks and pillars still had hieroglyphics able to be read and even in some of the areas that were not exposed to direct sunlight- you could see some of the color on them. It is amazing to think about what it must have looked like in its prime. All the colors, gold, carvings, reliefs- it would have been awesome. It was interesting to hear about the life of the ancient Egyptians and how the kings and pharos had to put their name on everything and when they took over the temple they added gates with their name all over it and defaced all the other’s and replaced it with their own markings. It was also interesting how the pharos married their daughters often..AND had children with them- so in that situation, you child would also be your grandchild…right? Icky. We also saw the avenue of sphinxes, this stretches for miles and miles through Luxor- for those of you that have been to Las Vegas, the avenue of sphinxes is just like the entrance to the Luxor hotel and casino- but these are the real thing and are not as fancy as the Las Vegas ones. Go figure 

We got to our boat around 11:30 and gathered in the lounge for a hibiscus tea/juice drink that was very refreshing and delicious- at least I thought so- Brad thought it tasted like cranberry juice. Then they supplied us with a gigantic bottle of water. They have been giving us multiple bottles of water a day, and we have been drinking them like crazy. The crazy part of that is, even so, we are still both very dehydrated. Our evening are spent drinking a lot of water to rehydrate- I feel kind of like a camel. We got our room assignment on the boat and we were up there for a little bit before lunch was served. The meals on the boat are served buffet style which is kind of nice because there are many options and you may not like them all. The food on the boat has been decent, not fabulous, but included in the price of the tour, are in a safe place, you know that it has been prepared well. So far we haven’t heard of anybody coming down with “mummy tummy” or “Pharos’s revenge”- which is rather unpleasant from what we understand. After lunch we had about 3-4 hours of free time. We slept and it felt GREAT. We woke up in time for afternoon tea/coffee before we left to go to the Luxor temple.

Luxor temple was considerably smaller than the temple of Karnak, but was still very impressive. Within this same temple there was a mosque and a church- which is very interesting for that time when it was built. Brad has been snapping pictures left and right so when we get back, careful to ask to see our pictures, you better have a lot of time set aside! There were a few statues that were in very good shape. Again, I have to wonder what this all looked like back in the day-

After the Luxor temple, we were taken to a papyrus making store where they gave us a demonstration of how it was made. I had to get up in front of the group and show how to use a rolling pin to roll out the water plant- I was chosen because as the man said, it was woman’s work…boy did he not know who he was talking to?? But what I can’t get over (and maybe it is because I am not an engineer) is how anybody ever looked at this plant and said “ hmm, I think this will make great paper”. Either way, it was neat. We purchased a couple pieces, one of them was a marriage picture between King tut and Nefirtiti (no clue on the spelling)- but there was two oval spaces were they wrote our names in hieroglyphics- which I though was a fitting purchase since this was our honeymoon trip. We haven’t been buying many souvenirs- mainly because the sellers are so annoying. But there are a few scarves that I have my eye on.

We got back just in time to eat dinner (quickly) before our optional excursion started. We opted into a sound and light show at the temple of Karnik. The sound and light show was interesting. They had it at night and it was completely dark….it was actually kind of scary. They navigated you though the history of the temple by telling you the story and lit up each section one at a time while you walked through it. Then at the end you sat on these bleachers for the end of the story. It was alright, but it may have been because we were just packing too much into one day. We got back to the boat and pretty much went straight to bed because we had a 5 am wake up call the next morning.

The early wake up calls are somewhat of a pain, but it is for good reason. It gets so hot here that by noon, you are done with the heat and the crowds. That is one that we both are starting to appreciate about traveling with Insight- they are very knowledgeable and truly look out for you while on the trip. They know when the crowds are the worst and when the temp is out of control and they get you at the attraction at the best possible time. They also help you with the locals, if one is harassing you and you are clearly not interested they will step in and tell the sellers to buzz of and we have witnessed that other companies do not do that for their people. Our guide, Mohammad is awesome- he tells us when we stop somewhere that it is the cheapest place for postcards, or if we wanted to buy something- not to pay more than X amount because otherwise you are getting ripped off. These are nice to know.