Luxor, Egypt
Hello, everyone! Thanks for keeping in touch with us via our photos and blog. I am looking forward to hearing from each of you personally as well along the way.
Dave and I had a rough start to our trip. Our flight from Denver to D.C. was delayed two hours (because of weather in Chicago, we were told). While we were waiting, we were discussing the things we wanted to be sure to see while we were in Egypt. A flight attendant began telling us about her experiences to Egypt, and by the time we boarded the plane, she really had us wondering what we were thinking going to Egypt at all. She talked of men groping women in the streets, diseases you could get just from sticking the tip of your finger in the Nile (and therefore allowing poisonous worms to crawl into your skin through your pores), excruciating heat, and two – three days of upset stomach that is “just part of the Egypt experience.”
Unfortunately, our late arrival into D.C. caused us to miss our flight to London, but we were able to get on a later flight. The flight to London, although full, was smooth. We arrived at Heathrow just to find out our connection to Cairo had been delayed an hour and a half. Since it left late, we got into Cairo around 11:30 pm, and we missed the last plane to Luxor. EgyptAir put us up in a nearby hotel where we slept for about thirty minutes before getting back up and going back to the airport. The Cairo airport is insane, but we managed to make our way onto our plane and headed for Luxor.
Upon arriving in Luxor, a taxi driver tried to charge us 50 Euros (around 100 U.S. dollars) for a ten minute cab ride to our hotel. They try to trick people by changing the currency. When he says 50, if you are not listening closely enough, you automatically think he means 50 Egyptian pounds (about 10 U.S. dollars). Tricky, tricky. Good thing we caught on.
We arrived at our hotel around 6:30 am only to discover they had decided to give our room away since we didn’t show up the previous night. We were exhausted since we had been traveling for around 40 hours already, and Dave needed to get on the internet. The receptionist told Dave he could use the wired internet in the lobby and directed us to two old computers. We tried to use the internet, but it wasn’t working. We called over the receptionist who told us he didn’t know what the problem was because he had just used these computers two hours ago, and they worked fine. However, he said, the internet was down in all of Egypt, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Dave then started to examine the computers and as he looked at one of the towers, the side fell off and what was left of the computer (not much) fell out. Clearly these computers weren’t working several hours ago. Since we couldn’t stay at a hotel without internet access anyway, we decided to call our hotel in Cairo to see if their internet was working. We were extremely tired and didn’t know what our best course of action was. Our hotel in Cairo said their internet was working fine, but while I was on the phone, a shop owner told Dave it wasn’t true the internet was down in all of Egypt and directed us to a hotel up the street.
Exhausted, we headed up the street to see if the hotel had a room we could use. They told us they only had one room for the night, but we decided to take it since we could use it to sleep and work and figure things out from there. Fortunately, the room opened up for the whole time we were staying in Luxor. We don’t think the hotel was ever fully booked in the first place.
After resting and working and eating, we started booking our tours for our time in Egypt. Our first tour was to Karnak and Luxor Temples. Karnak Temple is the largest temple in the world, sitting on over 200 acres, only six of which are open to the public. They have been doing restorations on the temple since the 1950s. Many pharaohs added onto Karnak Temple while they were in power, but the most noticeable pharaoh is Ramses II, the most famous pharaoh in Egyptian history (for Egyptians; we probably know King Tut better). We were fascinated by the incredible detail and magnitude of the architecture in the temple. It’s hard to imagine how they were able to create the complex architecture without our modern technology.
The next morning we arose quite early to go for a hot air balloon ride. I thought it w
ould a little cheesy, but it was actually an interesting perspective to see Luxor and the Nile River from the sky. We were able to see into some of the houses of the farmers because they didn’t have roofs. We had a little mishap though, as we landed in a sugar cane field. To say the least, the farmers were not thrilled to find us in their crops. Our balloon pilot assured us they would be compensated if any of their crops got ruined, but the farmers still didn’t seem very happy about it.
After the hot air balloon ride, our tour guide, Mamdouh, picked us up to take us to see more sights. The first place he took us to see was the Valley of the Kings. Kings such as King Tut were buried in the Valley of the Kings. Not all the tombs are open to the public, and many of them have not even been discovered yet. We got to see four tombs: Ramses III, Ramses IV, Ramses IX, and Tut. We weren’t able to take photos inside the tombs, but if you ever make it to Luxor, they are incredible. The color is still on some of the wall, a pretty incredible feat considering the tombs are thousands of years old.
Hatshepsut Temple was our next stop, and our tour guide told us the story of the 51 tourists who were shot inside the temple ten years ago on the way there (reassuring, huh?). Since the tourism industry is where 80-90% of the Egyptians have their jobs, they have really upped security. Your packages are supposed to go through an inspection and you are supposed to go through a metal detector on your way into all hotels and tourist attractions, although they aren’t very good at enforcing it. Hatshepsut was the first female pharaoh, and her stepson, Tutmoses, felt she had stolen the throne from him. When she died, he destroyed her temple. Of course, it’s still standing, but he ruined much of the artwork and pillars. 
Our last stop was Valley of the Queens. Unfortunately, only a few of the tombs were open when we were there. Queen Nefertiri is buried there, but her tomb isn’t open to the public. We got to visit many other tombs and temples, but I won’t bore you with the details of each of them.
The culture in Egypt is very similar to the culture in the Middle East. Most of the people are Muslim, a
nd the women wear headscarves. Five times a day prayers are sounded throughout the country. The women live with their families until they marry, and then they live with their husbands. They have to ask permission from their husbands to do anything. It’s a very different way of living than we are used to in the States. There is a lot of poverty in Egypt. Neither Dave nor I expected it to be as impoverished as it is. You can see the large income disparity between the tourists and the locals so easily. I imagine the locals find it very difficult to watch tourists enjoy luxuries of their country that they can’t enjoy.
We took a day trip to Aswan, about three hours directly south,
where we visited some more temples. Aswan is the home of henna for the Egyptians, so Dave and I both got some henna tattoos. Because Egypt is so far away from the United States, we had been warned to eat only at our hotel since the food is so different. We had been careful about what we were eating outside the hotel, but since we were spending the entire day in Aswan (6:30 am to 9 pm), we didn’t have a choice but to eat. Our tour guide recommended a place given to him by the travel agent he works for, but it turned out to be a bad choice. On the train back to Luxor, Dave ended up getting terribly sick. He ended up with food poisoning, which is just starting to subside now. We had to cancel our tour for the next day, although we tried to make it to an “Egyptian party” in the evening.
Unfortunately, we should have stayed at the hotel as the Egyptian party turned out to be quite disappointing. It felt very staged and cheesy with a dancing horse, camel rides, and a magician. We started to feel like we were at a children’s birthday party so we left early.
Our last day in Luxor we went on a final tour of some more temples and tombs. We arrived in Cairo yesterday, and we are intending to see the pyramids tomorrow. We are sure that Cairo will have a lot to offer us. Be sure to check back for the latest. I am going to try to post daily rather than at the end of each city because it’s so time consuming to write a long entry (and also time consuming for you to read it). Thanks for checking in!
Dave and I had a rough start to our trip. Our flight from Denver to D.C. was delayed two hours (because of weather in Chicago, we were told). While we were waiting, we were discussing the things we wanted to be sure to see while we were in Egypt. A flight attendant began telling us about her experiences to Egypt, and by the time we boarded the plane, she really had us wondering what we were thinking going to Egypt at all. She talked of men groping women in the streets, diseases you could get just from sticking the tip of your finger in the Nile (and therefore allowing poisonous worms to crawl into your skin through your pores), excruciating heat, and two – three days of upset stomach that is “just part of the Egypt experience.”
Unfortunately, our late arrival into D.C. caused us to miss our flight to London, but we were able to get on a later flight. The flight to London, although full, was smooth. We arrived at Heathrow just to find out our connection to Cairo had been delayed an hour and a half. Since it left late, we got into Cairo around 11:30 pm, and we missed the last plane to Luxor. EgyptAir put us up in a nearby hotel where we slept for about thirty minutes before getting back up and going back to the airport. The Cairo airport is insane, but we managed to make our way onto our plane and headed for Luxor.
Upon arriving in Luxor, a taxi driver tried to charge us 50 Euros (around 100 U.S. dollars) for a ten minute cab ride to our hotel. They try to trick people by changing the currency. When he says 50, if you are not listening closely enough, you automatically think he means 50 Egyptian pounds (about 10 U.S. dollars). Tricky, tricky. Good thing we caught on.
We arrived at our hotel around 6:30 am only to discover they had decided to give our room away since we didn’t show up the previous night. We were exhausted since we had been traveling for around 40 hours already, and Dave needed to get on the internet. The receptionist told Dave he could use the wired internet in the lobby and directed us to two old computers. We tried to use the internet, but it wasn’t working. We called over the receptionist who told us he didn’t know what the problem was because he had just used these computers two hours ago, and they worked fine. However, he said, the internet was down in all of Egypt, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. Dave then started to examine the computers and as he looked at one of the towers, the side fell off and what was left of the computer (not much) fell out. Clearly these computers weren’t working several hours ago. Since we couldn’t stay at a hotel without internet access anyway, we decided to call our hotel in Cairo to see if their internet was working. We were extremely tired and didn’t know what our best course of action was. Our hotel in Cairo said their internet was working fine, but while I was on the phone, a shop owner told Dave it wasn’t true the internet was down in all of Egypt and directed us to a hotel up the street.
Exhausted, we headed up the street to see if the hotel had a room we could use. They told us they only had one room for the night, but we decided to take it since we could use it to sleep and work and figure things out from there. Fortunately, the room opened up for the whole time we were staying in Luxor. We don’t think the hotel was ever fully booked in the first place.
After resting and working and eating, we started booking our tours for our time in Egypt. Our first tour was to Karnak and Luxor Temples. Karnak Temple is the largest temple in the world, sitting on over 200 acres, only six of which are open to the public. They have been doing restorations on the temple since the 1950s. Many pharaohs added onto Karnak Temple while they were in power, but the most noticeable pharaoh is Ramses II, the most famous pharaoh in Egyptian history (for Egyptians; we probably know King Tut better). We were fascinated by the incredible detail and magnitude of the architecture in the temple. It’s hard to imagine how they were able to create the complex architecture without our modern technology.The next morning we arose quite early to go for a hot air balloon ride. I thought it w
ould a little cheesy, but it was actually an interesting perspective to see Luxor and the Nile River from the sky. We were able to see into some of the houses of the farmers because they didn’t have roofs. We had a little mishap though, as we landed in a sugar cane field. To say the least, the farmers were not thrilled to find us in their crops. Our balloon pilot assured us they would be compensated if any of their crops got ruined, but the farmers still didn’t seem very happy about it.
After the hot air balloon ride, our tour guide, Mamdouh, picked us up to take us to see more sights. The first place he took us to see was the Valley of the Kings. Kings such as King Tut were buried in the Valley of the Kings. Not all the tombs are open to the public, and many of them have not even been discovered yet. We got to see four tombs: Ramses III, Ramses IV, Ramses IX, and Tut. We weren’t able to take photos inside the tombs, but if you ever make it to Luxor, they are incredible. The color is still on some of the wall, a pretty incredible feat considering the tombs are thousands of years old.
Hatshepsut Temple was our next stop, and our tour guide told us the story of the 51 tourists who were shot inside the temple ten years ago on the way there (reassuring, huh?). Since the tourism industry is where 80-90% of the Egyptians have their jobs, they have really upped security. Your packages are supposed to go through an inspection and you are supposed to go through a metal detector on your way into all hotels and tourist attractions, although they aren’t very good at enforcing it. Hatshepsut was the first female pharaoh, and her stepson, Tutmoses, felt she had stolen the throne from him. When she died, he destroyed her temple. Of course, it’s still standing, but he ruined much of the artwork and pillars. 
Our last stop was Valley of the Queens. Unfortunately, only a few of the tombs were open when we were there. Queen Nefertiri is buried there, but her tomb isn’t open to the public. We got to visit many other tombs and temples, but I won’t bore you with the details of each of them.
The culture in Egypt is very similar to the culture in the Middle East. Most of the people are Muslim, a
nd the women wear headscarves. Five times a day prayers are sounded throughout the country. The women live with their families until they marry, and then they live with their husbands. They have to ask permission from their husbands to do anything. It’s a very different way of living than we are used to in the States. There is a lot of poverty in Egypt. Neither Dave nor I expected it to be as impoverished as it is. You can see the large income disparity between the tourists and the locals so easily. I imagine the locals find it very difficult to watch tourists enjoy luxuries of their country that they can’t enjoy.We took a day trip to Aswan, about three hours directly south,
where we visited some more temples. Aswan is the home of henna for the Egyptians, so Dave and I both got some henna tattoos. Because Egypt is so far away from the United States, we had been warned to eat only at our hotel since the food is so different. We had been careful about what we were eating outside the hotel, but since we were spending the entire day in Aswan (6:30 am to 9 pm), we didn’t have a choice but to eat. Our tour guide recommended a place given to him by the travel agent he works for, but it turned out to be a bad choice. On the train back to Luxor, Dave ended up getting terribly sick. He ended up with food poisoning, which is just starting to subside now. We had to cancel our tour for the next day, although we tried to make it to an “Egyptian party” in the evening. Unfortunately, we should have stayed at the hotel as the Egyptian party turned out to be quite disappointing. It felt very staged and cheesy with a dancing horse, camel rides, and a magician. We started to feel like we were at a children’s birthday party so we left early.
Our last day in Luxor we went on a final tour of some more temples and tombs. We arrived in Cairo yesterday, and we are intending to see the pyramids tomorrow. We are sure that Cairo will have a lot to offer us. Be sure to check back for the latest. I am going to try to post daily rather than at the end of each city because it’s so time consuming to write a long entry (and also time consuming for you to read it). Thanks for checking in!
posted by Lindsay | 8:42 AM
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