Trip to Luxor

Nathan and I decided to head down to Luxor, a historic site in upper (or southern) Egypt.  Luxor was at one time the capital of the Egyptian empire and is home to a few temples, royal tombs and museums.  It was obviously a town that mainly relied on tourism, during a time when there are no tourist in Egypt, which led to an interesting trip.

 

We decided to take an overnight train to Luxor, leaving at 9pm on Thursday night and getting into Luxor at 7am Friday morning.  The train had old business class plane seats and gave plenty of leg room for even me.  The train was extremely over air conditioned, so we had to bundle up with the extra clothes that we brought.  I was able to get some reading done and a little bit of sleep, while Nathan was out for the majority of the trip.

When we got into the Luxor station, we were immediately met by dozens of tour guides and cab drivers hassling us.  One of the guides followed us the entire walk to get a cab and then rode in the cab with us back to the hotel.  We ended up deciding to go on a tour with him and got him down to half of what he was originally asking.  It was amazing though the number of people that hassled us during the trip.  There were basically no other tourists in Luxor besides us and were therefore the only targets.  It was amazing how exhausting it was saying no and turning everyone down.

These two statues were our first stop in Luxor on the tour.  Not sure their significance, but the broken one on the left was the Romans attempt to reassemble one of the statues, obviously not as good as the job the Egyptians did.

Our second stop was here at the Hotchisout Temple (not positive on the spelling).  This temple was built by one of the Pharaohesses for the mummification of only her body.  30 or so years of building this temple to be used only a few days for the mummification process.  Her tomb was located in the Valley of the Kings.

The rest of the tour included stops at the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, tombs for the various pharaohs and their queens and children.  No pictures were allowed in either site.  We were able to go into a few different tombs (including King Tut's) during the stops.  It was unbelievable how well preserved all of the artwork and hieroglyphics were on the walls of the tombs.  The colors were still incredibly vibrant. 

The above picture is looking out from the temple toward the city of Luxor.

That night we went to the Karnak temple for their sound and light show.  The temple was enormous (this picture does not do it justice).  This is the front exterior of the temple, behind which were numerous columns, at least 10 ft in diameter.

Outside of the entrance to the temple was a sphinx road.

The sound and light show was very well done.  They had two temple employees lead you through the temple in different stages.  At each stage, a British voice coming from speakers placed throughout the temple would tell the story of the temple while the various parts were lit up.  These two statues guarded one of the different sanctuaries in the temple.

This is one of the remaining obelisks left in Luxor.  They did have multiple obelisks but various Egyptian leaders gifted some of them to other countries.   

 

 After walking us through the entire temple, they brought us out to the side of a small lake that rested beside the temple where there was seating built into a hillside.  The remainder of the story of the temple was told from our seats here while the temple was lit up in various ways.  It was beautiful to see the mountains (I think the Valley of the Kings) in the background.


The next day we visited two different museums, the mummification museum and the Luxor museum.  The Luxor museum was incredible.  The artifacts were in amazing condition and the descriptions with each item were very thorough.  Nathan wasn't feeling well, though, so we had to take a few breaks during the day.  One of which was outside the mummification museum right next to the Nile.  The above picture is from our resting spot looking out over the Nile to the west shore of Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.

It was incredibly hot the entire time we were there, unbearably so during the afternoons.  So the second day we sought shelter in a McDonald's immediately adjacent to the Luxor temple.  We hung out here for a few hours and Nathan napped and I got some Arabic homework done.  

This is the view out on the Luxor temple from our spot in the McDonald's.

 When the sun went down, and in turn the temperature, we made our way into the Luxor temple.  We got a tour guide to lead us around the temple and give us the history of everything, which was well worth the $5 it cost.  This is in one of the various courtyards in the temple where the common person would come, since only the priests were allowed in the sanctuaries.

This is one of the column corridors leading to from the courtyard toward the sanctuary.

Two statues stood outside of the temple.  The lighting within the temple was very well done.

Overall, the trip was a sweet reminder of how much I dislike touristy destinations.  It was good to see some of the different attractions though.  

The emptiness (no tourists) of the town was incredible.  Our hotel complex was most likely set up to handle a couple hundred to maybe a couple thousand people and there may have been ten people staying in it with us (Saturday morning I sat in the breakfast area working on Arabic homework while Nathan was resting because he was sick.  I had a chance to count the number of people who came through to eat breakfast.  So assuming that the majority of people staying there also ate breakfast is where the estimation comes from.).  During a lunch we ate at one of the four hotel restaurants, we were the only ones there, and the staff did not seem like they had had anyone before us or were expecting anyone.  Also, walking the streets, outside of the actual tourist attractions we never came across any other tourists.  It was interesting though just how much the people there and the tourism was affected by the revolution.  

The complete lack of tourists and the abundance of peddlers, taxi drivers, horse carriages, and felucca owners made walking the streets unbearable.  As soon as we would step outside of our hotel, we were ambushed by at least one taxi driver and one or two horse carriage owners, and there would not be a time when we could walk alone in peace until we got inside of McDonalds.  Locals trying to hustle us were everywhere and desperate to get money from us however they could get it.  This really annoyed me and the Lord taught me a lot during the entire trip.

We also were able to have a good conversation with a local Coptic Christian.  We were walking down the street, and for a moment had a brief break from the peddlers when a man sitting down with his son and friend engaged us and asked how we were and where we were from.  The conversation progressed to Egypt and the Bible and then into the history of the Coptic church.  It was such a refreshing time to see and interact with a local outside of people simply trying to exploit us.

We also had a good conversation with an airport employee and discussed Egypt with him and some of the differences between American and Egyptian cultures.  I really enjoyed the conversation with this man as well.

We flew home from Luxor and were home and in bed by 3am and then at work the next day by 9am.