Welcome to Luxor, Egypt - Temples

Our day started with a 4 hour drive from Swaziland to Johannesburg where we made a stop to ship a package home and then head to the airport. We flew to Doha again, landing about 4am and then got into Luxor around 10am, landing us back in the Northern Hemisphere for the first time since Oct 5th. All in all this was about a 24 hour trip, but everything went smoothly, so it felt pretty easy when compared to adventure from Asia.

We arrived on our 3rd son's 10th birthday and he has always had somewhat of an infatuation with pyramids, so it's only fitting (and lucky really) that we are here to celebrate his special day.

Landing in Luxor, the scenery is immediately surreal. It sort of feels like you are on the set of an Indiana Jones movie. Brown sand lines the horizon and horse drawn carriages are everywhere traveling right along side of cars.  The air is dusty and many ruins and statues line the streets. Luxor, or the ancient city of Thebes, is a small community best known for the Valley of the Kings, the Karnak Temple and the Luxor Temple and we had already booked with a tour company to see all three. We only had about 72 hours here and we intended to make the most of it.

Our tour company picked us at the airport and we cleared immigration and paid for our visas smoothly. Arriving at our hotel we were greeted and shown our simple accommodations. Nothing fancy, but we only had two nights here. We then headed in search of SIM cards. Here is where things get more interesting. We opted to walk the streets and just our bearings and were literally hounded by vendors and even more so by the carriage drivers. We would politely tell them no thanks, but they would follow us, constantly asking us "Ferrari, Ferrari?" We didn't get it at the time but later figured out that they refer to the horse as the "Egyptian Ferrari."  The other thing that took us a day to learn is that if you are not firm (rude in our mind) with these people they will not stop bothering you.  You cannot say "later "or "maybe" as that will not deter them.  This gives us lots to talk about with the kids to say the least.

Loving the Egyptian Bread "Eesh balladi"

The Egyptian economy is really suffering since the revolution in 2011. Tourism, which is largest part of the economy stands at 10% of what it was prior to the revolution.  Thats not off 10% but rather one tenth of what it was.  The currency is officially pegged at 7.8 Egyptian Pounds to the dollar, but on the street one can get 10, which is a 28% difference and huge in the currency world.  The difference is a reckoning to the government about just how bad things really are.

After successfully getting new SIM cards, we made our way back to the hotel snacking on a few of the local street foods and just taking in all the sites and sounds of this vastly different environment. We realize we are in a much different place than we've ever visited before.

Our only item for today was taking a sunset Felucca ride on the Nile. Feluccas are a sort of sail boat that are famous here and we are excited just to be on the water. The ride was smooth and the views amazing. Apparently some tourists desire to drink from the Nile as legend has it, the person will return to Egypt - this was not on our list of "to do's!"  Following the felucca ride we had a birthday dinner at our hotel where they made G a huge cake.

Felucca ride on the Nile River

Our tour guide smoking the sheesha

Shepherdess in the field alongside the Nile

Celebrating G's 10th birthday!

Our first full day we were set for a tour of the Karnak and Luxor Temples.  We began our morning at the Avenue of the Sphinx.  This avenue has been uncovered just within the last 8 years and connects Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple.  These sphinx have ram heads to symbolize calmness/docility and lions bodies to symbolize power.  It is amazing to think that so much is still being discovered about this area and the ancient civilizations that lived here!

Avenue of the Sphinx

The Karnak Temple is the largest cult temple complex in the world.  It is over 200 acres and built from sandstone, granite, and alabaster (a type of marble).  The Ancient Egyptians did not have iron so they built everything with copper and bronze tools and used sandstone to sand down their designs. We observed ramps of how the Ancient Egyptians built the walls, many stories in hieroglyphics - and it was incredible to think that it was all original, built over 200 years, roughly around 2055BC - 100AD!

Standing amid the 134 columns resembling papyrus & telling stories

Haha!

Two youngest boys in front of Tutenkhamen statue  

SJ in front of Tutankhamen's wife's statue

G in front of picture telling story of Egyptian King Thutmosis III

G practicing his hieroglyphic reading with this cartouche 

G in front of Greek's Alexander the Great's cartouche

Sunny day at Karnak Temple

After the Karnak Temple we stopped at a papyrus shop to learn how the Ancient Egyptians used this plant that grew along the Nile to make paper products.

Learning how papyrus paper is made

We continued our history class at Luxor Temple, unique in that it is not thought to have been built for a cult god or with a purpose of aiding a king in death, but instead as a place where kings may have been crowned.  We continue to see statues and learn about Ramses II, who often put his cartouche (signature) everywhere including on other king's statues and works.  This they think was because he was worried future kings would erase him from history.  We learn that cartouche is actually a french word for bullet and is what they called the Egyptian Name Plates because of the shape with a line at the bottom.  We also see evidences of Amenhotep IV and his attempt to destroy polytheism by making it illegal to worship the many gods and requiring the kingdom be monotheists.  Most history depicted after Amenhotep IV's death still stands undamaged and we see evidence of his son Tutankhamen reverting the kingdom to polytheism before his premature death.  We continue to see evidences of many cultures who used these temples and left their marks.  The Romans have frescos depicting the Last Supper or possibly the Council of War on top of the Egyptian rock carvings.  Alexander the Great from Greece also leaves his cartouche around, showing he was there and aware of the history.  It is literally layers of history on top of layers of history.  Hard to fully grasp it all.  Meanwhile smoke damage, from when Christians used the temples to cook in, has recently been cleaned off of some of the walls and the original colors reappear.  All emphasis is put on history inside history, quantity vs quality - nothing is removed as even graffiti or a seemingly random marking is evidence of someone's presence here and can be learned from.

Our crew in front of Luxor Temple

Family in front of sphinx near Luxor Temple
(the human head of this sphinx symbolizes wisdom)

G at the feet of Ramses II statue

Our little Egyptologist!

After our tour we headed out for lunch and then came back to our hotel for naps and a bit of school.  

Men sitting on their carts selling goods along the streets

Oldest eating a traditional Egyptian meal of stuffed pigeon!

That evening we took a horse carriage to dinner.  We found a great pizza place and enjoyed some familiar food! Our carriage driver had convinced us he'd drive us after dinner, and so afterwards we began an escapade of finding an ice cream shop mom wanted us to try.  We succeeded in arriving a few minutes before they closed and enjoyed a delicious treat of unique combinations.  However, on our carriage ride home, we were continually heckled by our driver, who we'd brought pizza and been very upfront with about our intentions and cost.  Finally fed up, we had him drop us off on the street and walked the rest of the way home in peace - they are relentless.  The educated locals that we met at our hotel and on our tours apologized for the hecklers and carriage drivers and really held them in distaste, even referring to them as "savages". They claimed they are ruining tourism in Egypt.  For us, it was interesting to observe that there really are two classes of people here in Luxor, and the difference between them can be felt.

All in all, we were in awe of our introduction to Egyptian history and current culture.  Impressions from our first full day in Luxor were:

Dad: The places we visited are older so much than Machu Picchu

Mom:  Incredible to wrap her mind around the timing and overlap of so many historical events

C: It was better than visiting Machu Picchu and was the best history class ever

CB: The ruins were so much larger than expected and really cool

G: Awesome!  By the end of his life he's going to be able to read heiroglyphics! 

Sj: Lots of pretty statues

Our transportation to dinner

Luxor Temple at night