Egypt, Take 2 – Part 1

As you may remember, we had originally planned to go to Egypt about this time last year when Paul’s parents came out to visit. But two weeks before we were supposed to leave, all the riots broke out and my Egyptian colleague advised me not to go. So, we did a quick Plan B to Thailand which was wonderful.

So, when R, D, & L were planning their trip to come visit us, they brought up Egypt again. We decided to spend most of our time in Luxor which has the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, etc. and then just make a short trip to Cairo to see the pyramids and the Sphinx. There were still some rumblings of protests and riots in Cairo (which my family lovingly kept reminding me of), but we decided to not be daunted by the media coverage and went for it.

We landed in Luxor on a Wednesday evening. We had our driver take us by a little market to pick up some snacks and breakfast food before he took us to our apartment accommodations outside of town. We stayed at Egyptian Experience which I think worked out really well. It was nice to be away from the loudness of the town and also convenient that we could all stay in the 2BR apartment together.

Egyptian Experience - view from our room

The next morning we were up bright and early to meet Tayeb, our tour guide for the day. (Side Note: Paul thinks it’s funny that some men are named “Tayeb” because it means “Ok” or “Good” in Arabic). We booked through www.luxorguidedtours.com/toursin based on a recommendation from a couple we’re friends with in Abu Dhabi—we could not have asked for a better guide or experience, I would highly recommend them to anyone visiting Luxor.

Ready to go!

We opted for the full day tour which meant that our first stop was the Colossi of Memnon which is are two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III. They are 3,400 years old!

Historical Side Note: Many of the hieroglyphics and carvings represent Upper and Lower Egypt. Luxor is considered Upper Egypt and Cairo is considered to be a part of Lower Egypt even though it’s North of Luxor. This is because the Nile runs South to North as the South is at a higher elevation (which I think had learned at some point, but had forgotten). Around 2920 BC when the North and South were united, the capital was established in Memphis (just outside Cairo)—this is considered the 1^st Dynasty. Around 2134 BC Egypt splits into the North and South again. The 12^th Dynasty reunites the country and moves the capital to Luxor (aka “Thebes). Thus all the temples, tombs, and statues in Luxor are from the “Middle Kingdom” or from 2000 – 1800 BC.

Our next stop was the Temple of Hatshepsut (or R’Mose) who was one of the female rulers of Egypt. This temple was one of my favorite. The stories in the pictures/hieroglyphics were really interesting but maybe even more intriguing were how almost all of the images of her had been defaced/scraped off. This was because when her husband died, the next in line was her son. But the son was too young to rule, so Hatshepsut took over. When Hatshepsut finally died, her son had all of her images removed because he was angry that she had taken part of his rule from him.

Image of a hut from and turtle from a region of Africa that the Queen's army visited

A lot of the temples have stars painted all over the ceiling...  It's amazing to think about how long ago it was painted and how well the colors have been preserved

Egyptian symbol of life

Souk-like area at the bottom of the temple

Tayeb took us to an alabaster house next. We got a demonstration of how alabaster pots/vases are made and how to spot “fake alabaster.” We didn’t end up buying anything there, but we did by get some alabaster souvenirs from the Khan Al Khalili market in Cairo a few days later.

L about to try her first Turkish Coffee

Next we visited the Valley of the Kings. I couldn’t get any photos there because cameras weren’t allowed. We didn’t get to go inside Tutankhamen’s tomb because it was closed, but we saw three others. Then we went to the Valley of the Queens. Then we went to Ramesseum (a temple) and  R’mose (another couple of tombs).

Ramesseum

It's amazing how much detail there is in each of the carvings

They would draw grids and then the outline of the shapes before carving

Our guide told us to look closely at this from the side...  I'm not totally sure what we were supposed to see, but I think the lady's hair looks straight from the side

We had lunch at a local rooftop restaurant right next to the Nile. We had various types of chicken, fish, and “meat” (for some reason Arabic menus always say “meat’ for beef). We also had some great fresh Arabic bread with tahini and lentil soup.

I had no idea how agricultural Egypt is...  and how impoverished

Our next stop was the final “valley” which was the Valley of the Artisans (or Deir Al-Madina). This is where all the artisans that worked on the tombs lived. They weren’t allowed to live with the rest of the public because they knew where the tombs were and other secrets about them. There were also a few tombs for the artisans here. They were very interesting and very well preserved. The colors were so vivid (too bad we couldn’t take photos inside). They were definitely a lot smaller than the kings’ and queens’ tombs. Also, each tomb had an Egyptian guy posted outside who would stamp our ticket. Then they would follow us inside and tell us in English/French/gibberish the meanings of the images. For this unsolicited information, each time we were asked to pay a fee—this seemed to become a theme for our trip.

Ruins of the worker's homes

Next we visited Mednet Hebu which is the mortuary temple of Ramses III. It also has a palace attached to it—in the little side room next to the throne there was a “toilet” which Paul found very intriguing.  The temple was very nice at sunset. There were some great stories depicted on the temple walls and we enjoyed watching a cute Italian (??) kid play with a stray cat.

Mednet Hebu

Overall, a great day packed with a lot of sites, stories, and fun.

Busy Day

View of the Nile on our way back