We got up super early the next morning on December 23rd to fly to Luxor. There are a few ways to get there:
1. Take a Nile river cruise from Cairo to Aswan. It is pretty. People like it. You get port stops along the way. But if you want to get out and see things it might not be for you. It does have a tour to all the things you want to see at the stops and it is self contained which means you are on the ship for a long time. But I don’t want to do that for 3 or 4 days and the price you pay is not just it. You do have to tip at the end so plan on spending more money than the quoted price.
2. You can also drive the 8+ hours. It is easy to get a car to take you but will cost you a bit too.
3. Or you can fly. It cost about $250 USD round trip but only takes an hour and is the best option if you are trying to pack a lot into 10 days. We flew obviously as part of the trip includes learning diving which will take days away.
We arrived at the Ville Jolie at about 9 in the morning and set out right away to tour. We found a taxi to take us to some of them local sights.
The statues of Memnon (Colossi)
The Colossi of Memnon are two massive faceless stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III from 1350 BCE, in the Theban Necropolis in Luxor. Memnon was slain by Achilles during the Trojan war. They are cut from a single block of stone. The statues sit at the funerary entrance of the temple and that part is currently being excavated. The ground level was as high as these statues when they were discovered.
Valley of the Kings
Next was the Seti II temple. Mustafa was able to negotiate a taxi to take us everywhere for 500 Egyptian pounds. That slowed us to tour at our leisure and know that a car was waiting for us.
Seti may have only reigned for about six years, from about 1199 until 1193 BC. In ancient Egypt the long reign of a king is generally followed by succession problems. Ramses II was successful and had a long reign. Ramses son took power but was older as a result of Ramses long reign and Seti was that runners son. Seti was not known as a good ruler and had competition from another concurrent ruler. His resign was so short that his burial changer was not completed before his death.
Ramses IV was the third pharoah of the twentieth dynasty in 1156 BCE. He reigned 6 years and used extensive building activity to maintain Egypt’s prosperity in a time of deteriorating conditions in the country.
Ramses III was the second Pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt. He reigned from 1186 to 1155 BC and is most likely the last great monarch of the New Kingdom to have any real authority over Egypt.
Hatshesut temple. She was the 5th pharoah of the 18th dynasty in 1478 BCE. She was the 2nd female pharoah and installed herself after the death of her father.
Al-Deir Al-BahariHatshepsut was a great leader in re establishing trade routes, bringing back trees successfully to replace from other areas, and one of the most prolific builders in all of ancient Egypt. Her buildings are considered the most Grand and this one, her mortuary temple at Al-Deir Al-Bahari.
It starts out cold in the desert in the morning and night in the winter but still gets quite hot during the day. It drains the battery of the phone quite extensively. This was a lot of sight seeing for the first day.
For something different at night we took a Felucca out on the Nile to catch the sunset. This is a covered boat. It was beautiful and we stayed until it was dark then found a local restaurant to eat dinner.
