Day Two Karnak and The Cruise

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Believe it or not today is actually only day 2 of the actual tour! What we have done so far will be remember for a lifetime and there is more to go, much more.
Today dawns early, and I do mean early, 4AM. Our wakeup call was a little off kilter at 4:45 AM but this is Egypt and no one is on time or in a hurry.
Why so early? Well today we catch a flight from Cairo to Luxor at 8: AM so we can visit Karnak and begin the next aspect of the tour, the Nile Cruise.
So we head to Cairo in very early morning traffic and arrive on 45 minutes later. We head to a private terminal where we prepare to board our charter flight for the 1 hour trip to Luxor. Security in Cairo is a bit lacking.
We do go through a metal detector and X-ray machine but every passenger sets off the alarm and no one says a word. There is a security guard right there with a machine gun but he hears the alarm and waves you on. No one was even at the X-ray machine! Safety is job one in Egypt!
I just remembered that since we arrived here every entrance or exit from every building or tourist site we pass through a metal detector and e-ray machine and every time I set it off and every time I am waved on. I do notice however that every local who set off the alarm is pulled aside and searched thoroughly. I guess they figure tourists are not terrorists even though former president Busch pronounces them the same way.
Anyway, a quick uneventful flight of 350 miles and we arrive Luxor. Now Luxor is everything Cairo is not. Clean, not crowded, lush green countryside, minimal traffic and laid back. Unfortunately the hawkers here are worse if you can imagine that.
We get our bags and board the bus and head to Karnak. I am sure all of you reading this have seen photos or a National Geographic special on Karnak so you know what is there but to see it and touch it is simply amazing.
Karnak is one of two temples along the upper Nile (the southern portion of Egypt) and is located about 50 miles from Luxor. Karnak temple lies perpendicular to the Nile while Luxor lines parallel to the Nile. These two sites comprise some of the most important and complete temple complexes in Egypt.
Karnak is AMAZING. You enter through a row of Sphinx statues which formerly stretched from the Nile (2.5 Kilometers away) to the entrance courtyard.
Karnak was built by Ramses II and is composed of several temples devoted to serve Egyptian deities. The columns and obelisks are gigantic and are each made of a single stone some of which are over 50 feet high.
There are hieroglyphs everywhere you look but, unfortunately almost everyone has been marred in ancient times. It seems the early Christians fled to Egypt to avoid persecution by the Romans and one of the places they settled was Karnak. One of the terrible results of the Christian occupation was the destruction of the statues and hieroglyphs.
You see the early Christians believed that if they removed the face and the feet of all the hieroglyphs they could destroy the religion. Fortunately they did not destroy the written language on the walls of the temples just the carvings. So we have some historical perspective but can only see ruined carvings.
In Karnak we also see some of the splendors of what the actual temples looked like in color for there are some walls, but mostly ceilings, that survived the eons in full color. It is breathtaking. Temples to Ra, Isis, Osiris, and others are well preserved. You can walk in the footsteps of Ramses and other Kings of Upper and Lower Egypt.
. The weather is cool and sunny so it is a perfect day to explore. We are given some free time and while tooling around I come to an amazing site. I walk around a corner and down a long street toward the temple of Ra, the Sun God. There at the end of the street sits the entrance to the Temple of the Sun. I quietly enter and see that it is being renovated and cleaned. There is a workman with a tooth brush working on the wall. I wave and am about to leave but he beacons me to come in. I know this will cost me but I am intrigued.
He shows me the carving he is working on and then beacons me further into the dark recesses to the temple. Around a turn and then another turn and there before me is Ra the Sun God in all his glory.
What is there is a small hole in the ceiling through which a perfect shaft of light from the sun shines on the wall. He beacons me closer and puts his hand out into the shaft and the hand explodes in a brilliant ball of light. He is holding Ra in his hand. I take his picture and he stops me (I assume here comes the request for money) but he motions for my camera and tells me to stand in the face of Ra. I put out my hand and he snaps the shot. This will be the highlight shot of the trip I am sure.
We depart Karnak and take a 30 minute bus ride to the Nile and our river Cruise Ship. It turns out our ship is the MS Miriam a 5 star vessel with a passenger load of 150 plus crew. The ship can only be described as elegant.
She is beautiful from stem to stern (where she has a 50 caliber machine gun manned by soldiers in case of pirates). The top deck is a sun deck with soaking pool. The rooms are on the second and third floors with a bar on floor 2 and dining facilities on the lowest deck.
We are assigned our rooms (we get 305), head to our room to await our luggage and then off to a sumptuous buffet lunch.
Like several of the cruise ships we have been on the food is always the highlight and this cruise appears to be no exception. We have meats, cheeses, hot and cold salads, beans, beef, chicken and fish. Then there is the dessert table. Water and coffee are included.
We eat our fill and I change into shorts and head up to the sun deck to write the blog and enjoy the 5 hour ride from Karnak to Dendera our next port of call. The afternoon is devoted to high tea at 4:30 followed by dinner at 7:30 (another buffet meal). We visit with our new traveling friends and learn that we have lost one guest so far to the Revenge of the Pharos. He has not been seen for two days except to travel on the bus. Our lost luggage lady still does not have her suitcase.
We then have a brief meeting with the tour director and learn about the plans for Dendera. We also lean that our cruise will only have 46 people rather than the normal 150 making this a most personal cruise, with no crowds.
It’s 9 PM and I am exhausted so I head up to bed with Rick right behind. Tomorrow the wakeup call is at 6: AM for we depart the boat at 7 AM for our tour of Dendera the most preserved temple complex in all of Egypt.

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