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Published: March 14th 2008
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The next morning Janice's condition had improved slightly, the fever was down and she was able to make it out of bed to visit the Temple of Horus at Edfu. Dave, our tour leader, had 'arranged' (read bribed) the guard to let us in first so that we could get a few minutes to ourselves and look around in relative solitude. The temple was built in the Ptolemy period, but is important because it closely imitates much older temples and it is incredibly well preserved - it is also the site of the legendary battle between the gods Horus and Seth (who murdered Horus' father, Osiris - we got to "act" out the story later that evening after a few beers).
The temple has many statues of Horus as the Falcon and there are numerous reliefs depicting Horus as a Pharaoh hunting and killing hippos, apparently a metaphor for his evil Uncle Seth. Many of the reliefs still retain much of their original colour, amazing, given that early Christians lived in the temple complex and managed to blacken many of the surviving ceilings with smoke from cooking fires. Unfortunately, our brief opportunity to see the temple 'crowd less' was short
Sacred Barque of Horus
This is a model of the barge of Horus upon which idols would have been carried during festivals. It is located in the Sanctuary of Horus, the holiest part of the temple and before long the site was packed with European package tourists getting in the way and rudely shoving their way around the place.
By mid-morning, Janice had taken a turn for the worse and we headed back to the boat - unfortunately she continued to worsen throughout the day. Dr Dave - our tour leader - was checking her temperature every hour and it continued to rise so when we finally arrived back in Luxor we disembarked and left for the hospital. The doctor's diagnosis was "chest infection" until I mentioned that we'd been in Africa and had friends who'd contracted malaria - then he wanted us to go to the Center for Tropical Diseases, but as we had results from the malaria test due back in a couple of days we elected to just get antibiotics to treat the infection and reduce the fever (luckily this turned out to be the right decision).
That night belly dancers and other entertainers joined passengers and crew for the "Nile - Farewell Party", so we got dressed up again for a bit of frivolity - Janice stayed in bed in an attempt to get herself well enough for our journey
by donkey to the Valley of the Kings the next morning.
After waking up at 5am we did a quick 'temperature check' and discovered, to our relief, that the fever had broken during the night and things were back to normal. As she was feeling much better, Janice joined us for the excursion to the Valley of the Kings on the West bank of the Nile. Due to the strong beliefs that Egyptians held about the Sun and the importance of the Nile in their day-to-day living, all tombs and pyramids are located on the west bank as that is the side on which the Sun sets every evening and as such was associated with death and the afterlife.
After meeting and naming our donkeys (mine was Snowy), we set off through the streets of what was once the ancient city of Thebes. The donkey ride was a bit of an "experience" as much of it was beside the road and with the crazy Egyptian drivers I had visions of someone falling off their mount and being run over in the street - luckily this was avoided and we arrived at the necropolis of the New Kingdom Pharaohs
without incident. The pharaohs from Tuthmosis I (1,500 B.C) onwards wanted to protect the artifacts and treasures buried with them from robbers so adopted the approach of digging their tombs deep into the hillside as they could be hidden, rather than constructing massive monuments like the pyramids. Unfortunately, this strategy was unsuccessful and every burial chamber except for Tutankhamun, Yuya and Tuya's were broken into and robbed of their treasures.
After a brief talk by Adel (our local guide), we headed off to visit the tombs of Ramses VII, Ramses IV, Ramses IX, Ramses I and Tutankhamun - it is hard to describe the feeling you get as you descend into the surface of the earth via tunnels adorned with hieroglyphs and reliefs depicting passages from the Book of the Dead along with paintings painted many thousands of years ago and designed to help the Pharaoh successfully complete his journey to the next life. Needless to say it was amazing and definitely an experience I will remember for a lifetime!!
Visiting Tutankhamun's tomb was also very special, as even though it is much smaller and less ornate than the rest, it is unique in that his gilded coffin
still lies within the sarcophagus and his mummy is on display inside the tomb. After seeing the size of the tomb and knowing the amount of treasure Howard Carter found therein when it was discovered in 1922, it is hard to imagine how much the other tombs contained given their larger size and grandeur in comparison with King Tut's.
Then it was off to Dier al-Medina, or the Village of the Workers, to visit the tombs of those craftsmen and artisans that spent six days a week working on the royal tombs and the final day working on their own - what a depressing life!! Nevertheless, these tombs were easily the most beautiful we had seen to date - the reliefs depict daily life for the ordinary Egyptian and show scenes of farmers, fishermen and their families interacting with each other, the Pharaohs and the Gods. The colours in these tombs are so amazingly vibrant and vivid that they could have been painted yesterday - absolutely extraordinary!!
After a quick photo stop at Hatshesput's Temple (the female Pharaoh), which was swarming with tourists, we headed off to see the Colossi of Memnon before returning to Luxor where I
visited the fantastic Luxor Museum (with an exquisite sculpture of Tuthmose III) and Luxor Temple to get a few night shots as we were leaving Luxor the next morning.
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