A LUXORious Break

We left Alexandria at 5PM on Tuesday, and arrived in Luxor at 7AM the next morning. Why in the world would you voluntarily sign up for this you ask? The train was actually enjoyable. I slept for eight hours, and got to avoid all of the hassle of traveling to Cairo to catch a plane and dealing with security etc. While the actual plane ride was definitely faster, the group of kids from our program spent almost the same amount of time en route as they left Alex at 3PM and arrived the hotel a little after midnight. Needless to say, we were thoroughly pleased with ourselves when we stepped off the train in Luxor, and found a driver from our hotel waiting for us!
Being the ambitious and nerdy travelers we are, Andi and I decided to have full, but reasonable days while we are traveling. We started our day by having a horseback ride through the countryside. I know, I know, I hate animals. But it sounded really nice. Despite the fact that the horses were less than super (read: old and sick) and that neither of us will be able to sit down for a while, it was really beautiful and fun.
We returned to the hotel and promptly passed out. We woke up to our alarms and headed downstairs to our 3PM tour (LE 50 or $10 per person). We met our tour guide Mark went in an air-conditioned van to the Karnak Temple. The temple is an amalgamation of additions and changes by different pharaohs starting as far back as the Old Kingdom all the way through the New Kingdom(thousands of years of history). As we walked deeper into the temple we were looking further and further back into history. One the highlights included us walking around a statue of the sacred Scarab beetle three times counter clockwise for good luck. I took an Egyptology course at Penn last Spring, and I was thrilled to be in front of the monuments I had studied all semester!
Next we went to the Luxor Temple, which was conveniently located a block from our hotel. Karnak Temple is bigger and has more to see, but Luxor Temple has a more quiet dignity. There are less colors, and more simple designs. There is also an open air museum, where artifacts are placed around the temple in chronological order with detailed descriptions.
After the tour we met up with Molly and Esra who are also in Luxor for the break. We ate at a “basha (there is no “p” in Arabic) style” restaurant, meaning ornate chairs, low tables and elaborate decorations, and relaxed before heading to the souk. During my time in Morocco in 2007, I discovered my hidden talent for bargaining. Alexandria doesn’t have a traditional Arab souk, which in my opinion is a negative trait, because the souks are great places to buy things as well as practice your language skills! We had a ball walking through the touristy Luxor souk as people tried to show us their wares, and we bargained a lot. Esra got a traditionally galabeyah, and Andi got a mother of pearl and wood box for her sister. A common thing for the people here to do is to say something is outrageously cheap like LE 1, and then when you take out your wallet they immediately jack up the price. The shop owners were shouting at us as we walked by, and my favorite line of the night was when one particularly persistent man shouted, “Ladies! Please! No hassle in my castle!” as he followed us through the souk…yeah no hassle.
Andi and I returned to our room and passed out, exhausted from our long day.
This morning we went on a guided tour of the West Bank. We saw Valley of the Kings, Dier El Bahri (Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple) and Valley of the Queens. In the New Kingdom, pharaohs began to cut into natural rock formations to build their tombs, in order to avoid a lot of grave robbery. The Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens are not impressive from the outside, as they look like holes in the side of a mountain. However walking into them is truly an incredible experience. All of them are comprised of long hallways that are decorated intricately with scenes from the life of the pharaoh, as well as his journey to the afterlife. The colors are still vivid, and the tombs are incredibly well preserved despite the fact that the oldest ones date back to the sixteenth century B.C. Cameras were not allowed, and honestly I am happy about that because it would be impossible to capture their splendor on film.
Dier El-Bahri was equally as impressive. I have wanted to visit this temple since I was ten years old, in the fifth grade, and we learned about Hatshepsut. Although she obtained her throne by less than admirable tactics (basically assumed the throne in the name of her step-son who was also her nephew, and sent him to military school), and portrayed herself as a man while on the throne, her twenty-year reign was one of the most peaceful and prosperous in Ancient Egypt. It is a grand, three tier structure, with the dry desert mountain as a backdrop. There are massive statues of her, as well as scenes depicting the successful campaigns throughout her reign. Archeologists are still working on recovering and restoring the remainder of the tomb. After the tour we got a quick lunch, and relaxed at a café before taking a 6PM train to Aswan from Luxor (a three hour trip).
We had a great evening in Aswan. It is much more urban than Luxor, and there is definitely active life outside of the tourist industry. This makes walking around relaxing and easy, as we were bothered significantly less. The city isn’t overwhelmingly large, but it definitely has a pulse. We had a snack at a restaurant on the Nile, and walked through the souk. The souk was extremely organized and really impressive, and while people hassled us a little they were really receptive to our lack of interest in their wares, and left us alone after one or two tries. The culture down here is different from anywhere else in Egypt, as is the dialect. In Egyptian Arabic, the “kaf” (a cross between a “q” and a “k” sound that comes from the throat) is entirely omitted from the spoken language, and replaced with a glottal stop. However they use it here, and the taxi driver didn’t even understand Andi and I until we lapsed back into MSA, our old comfort zone! I am really excited to spend a few days here and learn more about the culture.
Today we are going to Abu Simbel!