Karnack

Men fishing in the sacred lake at the Karnak Temple in Luxor . Notice the cat!

This is one of the painted surfaces in the temple.

This courtyard had 134 huge, huge columns

This is one end of the avenue of Sphinxes. One end is at the Luxor Temple. The other end is at the Karnack Temple 3 km away. Only part has been excavated.

The first few days

These are the women I met in the Amman, Jordan airport. It was quite the cultural exchange. The women in the top picture were Iraqi's on a pilgrimage to Mecca and were going to pray for their families. The lady in the bottom picture was a Jordanian woman who was traveling with 2 sisters, a niece and a family friend to do some shopping for the niece's wedding (arranged). It was amazing how much we had in common.

One of the 3 great pyramids just outside of Giza - and I mean, just outside of Giza. The town just suddenly stops and the Sahara Desert begins. It was amazing to be at structures I've heard about most of my life and never really though I'd see then, much less touch them. They are about 5,000 years old. We went into one of them.


Of course I had to get on a camel. We checked with our tour guide first to make sure we were with people that didn't try dirty tricks. We were warned off from some. Those will kick the camel and send them out into the desert. Then you have to pay $50 to get back! The vendors in Egypt are aggressive and relentless. Partly it is because tourism is down and there is a lot of competition for the dollars. They had all sorts of tricks they would use to try and trick you into buying things you didn't want or charge more than you thought you'd bargained for.

This was as close as Jim would get to getting on the camel.

Just in case the Sphinx gets hungry, there is a Pizza Hut just across the street. Seriously. It was only a 5 minute walk away.



One of our first stops was Aswan. It's a prettier town than most Egyptian towns. We got on a river boat and spent the night. The next morning we went up the Nile a little ways to some boats to visit the Philae Temple. This is one of the boat men. In all, we visited 3 temples on the Nile. After the Philae Temple, we cruise down river to Kom Ombo then to Edfu. It was very interesting to boat down the Nile. The green on each side is fairly narrow, especially on the West bank. We had a very interesting glimpse into rural Egyptian life. I don't think much has changed in the last 5,000 years.



These men are fishing. The standing man with the pole would slap the water with the pole. I found out later that this would scare fish into their nets.


This is the Edfu Temple. We took a horse carriage ride through the town to the temple. The ride through town was like a ride back in time. People were friendly towards us and kids would often wave. It was like visiting another world or going back in time.

Downtown Edfu.

Another stop was an alabaster store. Near the Valley of the Kings, there is a mountain of alabaster. These is one of the workman. We got a brief demonstration of the process. It is all done by hand tools. I found out that Alabaster vases don't hold water. The stone is porous. But I bought one anyway.

These are some of the children of the store owner. They were cute and loved having people take their picture. They were one of the few Egyptians that didn't ask for money after you took their picture!




I had heard that pyramids and temples were painted when they were first built, but I couldn't imagine it. Here is a part of one of the temples with it's paint intact after over 2,ooo years. What you see is called a winged solar disk. It was believed that if a man touched it he would gain much power. So they always put it up high, out of reach. The paints faded in the sunlight, so only surfaces protected from the sun kept their original paint. There was one tomb we visited in the Valley of the Kings that looked like it had just been painted. The colors were very intense after over 2,000 years.



This is the toilet of Ramses III. I'm not sure exactly how it worked. They didn't give any demos. The large flat area on the right was his "shower." It was open from about shoulder height. On the other side on one of the walls was a platform where they would have women pour jugs of water over the edge for the "shower water". The wall was high enough that the women couldn't see in but low enough to be able to supply the water.