Luxor and beyond!

Greetings from Luxor Egypt! I am located in the original capital of Egypt where the Pharaohs of the day ruled with military force and built dynasties of architectural masterpieces that are still amazing today. Luxor is a little over an hour by plane from nowadays Egyptian capital of Cairo where the Pyramids are located.

Luxor was hit by several terrorist bombings in recent years which really crippled the tourism industry (which is about the only source of income for the area) until late. Built along the Nile River and surrounded by a mountain range in which the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens are carved into. Today there are over 280 river cruise ships plowing the Nile from Luxor to Aswan. Which I have got to admit I felt really bad not being on one of the cruise ships. But to really explore Luxor you must do so by car, horse and carriage or foot.

After my plane was an hour delayed for technical reasons I was first able to set foot in Luxor and meet a great cab driver who spoke good English this is for sure a blessing. When telling him that I would only truly be in town for the next day and I would need a driver we began to negotiate for the fare for tomorrow for the full day. This is when it became even more apparent not to mention the hotel room I had booked at $20 a night, that Luxor is really dieing for more of the tourism dollars.

Anyways he said because of the heat he wanted us to leave tomorrow at 8am but knowing it was my only day to sleep in all week we settled on 10am. The sites in Luxor are divided into the West Bank where the Valley of the King and Queen are and the East bank which is where modern day Luxor is and the Karnak temple is.

On the way to the West bank you get to cross over via bridge the Nile river and are immediately taken back in time. With the numerous donkey drawn carriages, tons of agriculture workers in the fields and an all around simpler way of life if you will. As you driver closer and closer to the mountains you start seeing the caves in the side of the mountains, which I am not sure the story of but figure it is where the Bedouins live today. And immediately are struck by two huge stone statues of what appears to be Rameses but I am not 100% sure.

The first site was the Valley of the Kings my driver asking me if I would be about an hour and I agreed that sounded about right. Lets just say there is soo much to see that I ended up spending about 2.5 hours there. They have an efficient system after security checks a trolley that takes you into the valley and you being to explore the different tombs. As you are not aloud to take photos inside I just have photos of the signs outside explaining about each one, and what was found within or the significance. There were probably about 15 to 20 different ones and about half of those were open to tourists currently to see within.

The ones closest to the entrance were impressive you start noticing the intricacy of each drawing with the different colors and carvings and symmetry but not huge in size but still vast amounts of room for you to walk around in comfortably. As you get further and further bank into the valley is where the amazing tombs are. They are extremely deep into the mountain with numerous rooms for different purposes and even more intricate carvings and drawings. I guess I have two good examples, the first was of a King that had died suddenly so there was a descent size tunnel that dropped of suddenly deep to where the room where the mummy was laid. (thus representing the abrupt death).

The other example depending on the story of what they were supposed to be doing in the afterlife had snakes cobras to be specific and they explained that cobras carved and colored into the wall of the tombs pointing to the entrance were supposed to protect the King in the after life, and the cobras facing the tomb were supposed to be deminies and bad things in the afterlife. Now each tomb had an amazing assortment of things for the dead kings to use in the afterlife. Such as in the example of the ones with the cobras pointing towards them was a book that they found which was depicting stories and ways to fight off the demons in the after life. Other things such as the King Tuts for example which was said to have the most stuff in it Such as: 6 of the un assembled light weight horse carriages, jewelry, plates, furniture such as chairs for them to sit in, coins, gold, and the list goes on and on.

After exploring and exploring in amazement of the artifacts still in existence after the countless amount of time that has passed we went onto the next site. Which was the valley of the Queens. This site was similar in the sense that they were built into the side of the mountain but definitely not as many tombs as the other valley. This followed the same story as well, but also included tombs of princes that died young. In fact one even had the bones in perfect form on display right next to the stone casket. Some may consider it in bad form to have such a thing of graphic nature but I am sure to the history buffs it was appreciated. I for one was just a little shocked at the moment.

Then we headed to Temple of Hatshepsut Which was a massive building built into the side of the mountain that was extremely impressive and the best was I could describe it to is something out of the movies of a British Summer estates. It had 100 of stairs carved from stones going up several stories with tones of amazingly tall statues guarding from side to side at the top level. This one was interesting because there were several ornate cattle depictions carved into the walls (I am sure of some significance to it, but I never heard what) Poland has recently helped to restore the entire site.

There were numerous other smaller sites that I explored that had the same types of impressive drawings, carvings, statues, paintings on the walls and mammoth columns. It was at this point amazingly hot almost indescribable. To give you an idea I think throughout the the afternoon I drank like 8 bottles of water to try to keep hydrated. I was also sad at times for the people there that were trying to sale their tourist souvenirs; I believe it had to be the cheapest prices for this stuff that I had ever heard of. Offering statues of stone and such for like 20 cents. I was really sad that I couldn’t buy any of it, because I just can’t have the weight in my bags as I fly too much.

Anyhow we headed back into the East side where the city is and after a great lunch we started to explore Karnak temple. This is right in middle of the city and is huge. As you enter after going through all of the ticketing and stuff you are greeted by huge statues probably 25 on each side of Goat / Cat looking animals in a sitting position. An impressive entrance to the temple to say the least. Once inside from this entrance one is struck by a huge Statue of Rameses and The Gigantic collection of columns that line the walk way. I was just standing there struck to what they had been able to build all of those years ago when speaking to someone in amazement I said it’s pretty cool isn’t it, as the old man replied its more then cool its amazing. Which is really what sums up Karnak temple. Within is a large lake in which is held together by its stone walls which was for the religious leaders to cleanse themselves before they started their daily religious duties inside the temple.

I got a little off the beaten path and one of the Bedouin guards starting showing me the parts of the temple which are currently closed to the public because of restorations, which is a another area with amazing gates probably 4 stories high, and huge statues and more buildings probably for religious use.

By this point I felt as if I was going to pass out if I didn’t go some place to cool down, after getting back to the hotel it was the perfect place on the roof top pool to see the antiquities sites from up high I had been exploring all day, watch the cruise ships float by and enjoy the pool.

That night I had one main thing to do which was to explore the Luxor museum, which for anyone who has been to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo like I have knows it’s a lot to take on. I mean the Egyptian Museum in Cairo looks like someone took 1 million artifacts and through them in a bunch of rooms, you could spend weeks and not of explored everything and probably because of the lack of organization not know what half of what it is.

Anyways that being said, the Luxor Museum is different. They start off by showing you a movie that explains what you will see, a little about the origin of Luxor and Rameses and King tut and to be honest gave me a lot of information that simply just didn’t know that brought it all together for me.

I was amazed when I stepped in the Luxor museum was a world class museum and organized I felt as if I was at the MET of Egypt. There is everything you can image in there but instead of 2 million different pieces like in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, this Museum has the top 100 pieces probably. You first are shown the different statues much smaller in scale compared to what we had seen outside all day, and all have a different story either of a special animal which represents death or some crazy thing, or of a special person that was close and trusted by a King. Then there is the stuff that was in King Tuts tomb such as one of the chariot’s, furniture, dishes, coins, the different archechtural tools that were used to build the tombs with such symmetry. As well as two mummies, on of which had been stolen and placed in a Canadian Museum until it was recently returned to Egypt. It is crazy because you actually see the Mummies and not everything is covered up by the linen.

Two of the pieces that really caught my eyes were one was a necklace with three large flies made out of Gold these flies were given to a warrior when ever they did good in battle, it really made me laugh a fly of all things you would give to someone.

The other was a piece of a casket which they explained was a Christian stone casket, with the fish ornately carved into it. I was taken back it was one of the oldest Christian artifacts I think I have seen not taken into consideration the remains of the churches of John the Baptist in Jordan on the Jordan river.

So I know I have written a ton, but I think to sum it all up and if it wasn’t already apparent by how much I have written, Luxor truly is amazing. You know I am not a history buff so that says a lot, and I for sure say that the antiquities of Luxor I believe are as impressive as that of the Pyramids but in a different way of course.

Looking to my job it’s interesting to think of the amazement of the advanced society that existed all of those years ago, and today my job what I get paid to do. Analyzing businesses here in Egypt and to think they are an emerging market not considered a developed nation. Leads you to the question what happened where and when did things start to change.

Well I guess that’s all for now for those of you still reading by this point, it was an amazing trip and another example of the wonders that the Middle East region holds for those that dare to come and explore. For now its time to start up another work week. And until then I look forward to my trip to India two weekends from now. All for now.

Chad