We're in De-Nile, May 10

De Nile River that is!

 The Nile River is the longest river in the world, 4,000 miles in length, going from Uganda to the Mediterranean.  It runs right through the Sahara Desert, providing a fertile strip of land that was home to one of the earliest civilizations in the world; Ancient Egypt 5,000 years ago.  They were by far the most advanced civilization at the time, having a written language (hieroglyphics), art, palaces, temples, armies, and so on. 

Given the river's immense historical importance and record-setting length, we were expecting to see the biggest, i.e., widest, river ever.  Think of the Saint Lawrence river, particularly near it's mouth.  Well the Nile was much smaller than we expected, but of course, we have to remember we are seeing it at Luxor, a long way from its mouth.

Here is the Nile River.

We had a lovely lunch at the Luxor Sheraton on the Nile. (Peggy is squinting because of the sun)

Tourism is normally the second largest industry in Egypt, but because of the unrest, going on 3 years, tourism is down 90% from normal.  These Nile riverboats are now a rare sight.  In good times they are busy going up and down the river loaded with tourists.  We saw them all tied up gathering dust, going nowhere.  This is the only one we saw on the river.

Recall the caves at Petra in Jordan where they used to bury the dead.  Well it seems that caves to bury the dead was a popular idea here in Ancient Egypt 5,000 years ago also.  During the reign of the great Pharaohs from the 16th to the 11th century BC this practice was honed to a fine art.
During their lifetime the Pharaohs (kings) would construct elaborate caves dug into the side of sandstone hills in an area now called The Valley of the Kings.  When they died, the Pharaohs, along with other nobles and servants would be buried in the cave. 

Cave is the wrong word to describe these.  It may look like a cave at the entrance, but once you enter, you go down a long tunnel which opens up into multiple rooms with high ceilings, with elaborate art carved and painted on all the walls and ceilings.. Each Pharaoh tried to outdo the previous one in making his tomb larger and more beautiful than the last one.

  We went into four; those of  Ramses III, IV, VI and IX.  The one for Ramses VI was by far the best of these four.  It was massive, with many room and amazing beautiful carving and painting on all surfaces.  It might have been the best because apparently Ramses VI took over the one being built by his predecessor Ramses V when Ramses V died.  We never found out what happened to poor old Ramses V, but it doesn't sound good.

 Unfortunately, we have no pictures of these tombs, as cameras were not allowed.  We are convinced that was so they could sell more postcards. One of the Aussies with a cell phone promised to send us his pics. We'll see.

Luxor was the capital of Ancient Egypt, and literally means "City of Palaces".  In its heyday it was called Thebes, and was full of beautiful palaces, temples, statues and other huge edifices.  One of the few remaining large ruins is the Luxor Temple built during the reign of Ramses II.

The walls are all carved with hieroglyphics and pictures.  Peggy found a Canada Goose, who obviously was very lost.

King Tut became Pharaoh at age eleven.  His wife was three years older.  Here they are pictured at ages 11 and 14. 

Originally the front of this temple had two large stone obelisks one on each side of the entrance.  See below, now there is only one.  The other was taken by a Prussian noble and given to France as a gift and now stands in the middle of Place de la Concorde.

The Luxor Temple is linked to the Karnak Temple by the Avenue of the Sphinxes, a two mile long walkway lined on both sides with Sphinxes.

Karnak is a sprawling religious site with numerous ruined temples, chapels, etc. and is the second most visited site in Egypt after the Pyramids.  We did not have time to explore Karnak but we did see the immense statues known as the Colossi of Memnon that used to guard Karnak.

Our ship docked on the Red Sea at a small town called Safaga, which was quite ugly.

 

 

The two hour bus ride from Safaga to Luxor and the Nile was almost all desert, mostly mountainous, with some beautiful scenery.

 

 

Occasionally we would see other vehicles, as below, but not many.

Perhaps it was empty because of the danger.  Our convoy of buses had an armed escort both ways, and we went through about a half dozen military check points on the trip.  As we had been instructed, we did not take any pictures of the check points, but Peggy did wave at the armed soldiers who seemed delighted and waved back.

Our greatest danger came form the very aggresive, in your face, vendors (hockers). They were worse then in India. So no browsing here.

It's too bad about the unrest in Cairo as it would have been nice to see the pyramids. Tut Tut!