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Published: July 18th 2008
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Egypt Day 5
We woke up to the sound of the air conditioner humming at full power in the hotel room, as the sun yesterday was quite a bit to handle. Then we boarded a felucca (small sail boat, where the wind is the only source of power to get us down the Nile river) The early part of the morning included, a pop can that was traveling down the river faster then us.
The afternoon was a bit better with a new gust of wind, the felucca was moving at a quicker pace then the morning, we actually caught up to the can. For a break as a group we stopped at the side of the river and went for a nice cold swim in the Nile, now there are no crocs in the water, as they have built a high dam in Aswan for electricity. So the river was cold and had quite a strong current to it, and we were reminded to not drink the water.
When we docked for the night on a small island along the Nile River, we were treated to a soccer game of all the Egyptian boat people that were
working on the feluccas. It was a great sight to see the Egyptian people having a great time. Now, sleeping on a felucca was great, nice warm wind, a soothing sound of the waves hitting your boat, the bad part was the bathroom facilities. Putting up a sheet and digging a hole isn’t what I call nice, but it served it’s purpose…. reason 304958 it is better to pee standing up. I did meet a nice water buffalo, when I went walking to find the driest tree to pee on…On to Luxor
Day 6….Luxor
After a nice 3-hour bus ride with police escort, we arrived at your new hotel in Luxor, which has been called the world’s best open (freak’n hottest) air museum in the world.
We caught a ride with a horse and his carriage as we made our way to the largest temple in the world, the Karnack Temple. The temple is made out of pylons, temples, halls, and sanctuaries, small sharp plants that hurt if you step on them, from the middle kingdom till the Greek Roman period.
Then it was up to the roof for a nice dinner and a swim
Day 7… Luxor
We were awake with the sound of a wake-up call, as we all know donkeys won’t wait for anyone. A motorboat took as across the Nile and we began our climb to the Valley of the Kings on the back of an ass. The donkey ride was an interesting time, because we had to continually weave and bob from the donkey ahead of us, because it seems that the donkey’s had drank the water here in Luxor.
The Valley of the Kings is pretty self explanatory, as it is a valley of sand and has a whole bunch of tombs in it. As a group we walked our way to the tombs, we were only allowed to see 3 tombs.
You need to do this before you can read the rest.
1) Go to the nearest sauna you can find and sit in it with all your clothes on
2) Invite 30 people over to sit in the sauna with you
3) Make sure the sauna isn’t taller then 3 feet
4) Draw lots of people around the sauna giving things to gods
Good now, your ready
Tomb 1) Up
Abu Simbel - Small Temple
This is the temple that Ramses II built for his wife Nefrtari. the cliff we went, and then down the tomb we went. It was a steep descent into the tomb, and the smell of the stagnant air was awesome. As you passed the first pictures you made it to the well room (pit where people died) and then onto the next floor (more pictures) and then we made it to the burial room (no mummy, just the sarcophagus).
Tomb 2) A nice long hallway, were the painting and air were fantastic, the biggest thing about this tomb, was that the King died before the tomb was completed. It was completely finished when he died, so it just ended there.
Tomb 3) King Ramesses 3
It was a nice slow decent into the tomb, but unfortunately it was blocked so we couldn’t go all the way into the tomb. It looked like it went a bit farther down. I think they were still working on the cleaning of the tomb.
The newest form of transportation we decided to use was a pickup truck with a cab on the back and we sat in the back.
We ended our quick taxi ride to Queen Hatshepsut’s temple, really she may
Pyramid Up Close
To satisfy your curiosity... no they aren't as smooth as they look in the photos. have been the world’s first feminist. She was a queen that was a king, because the next in line to be the king was from another mother, so he wouldn’t be 100% royal. (Sounds a lot like Maury talk show). Her temple was full of statues of her, but another king that didn’t like her destroyed a lot of them. By her temple, was the tomb of her lover, who was a teacher of her children? There was also a temple for all the workers that worked on the temple (so a lot of them).
We then arrived back to our hotel, for a nice swim and then off to the market tonight, to find some nice looking/cheap pieces of Egypt.
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