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We are still tourists today--touring is expensive because there is so much to do in a short amount of time. Seeing Luxor is a perfect example of an inexpensive country becoming expensive. We arrived in Luxor early after hitching a ride from our cruise boat docked in Esna, about an hour south. Of course there was a small skirmish on the issue of whose responsibility it was to get us to Luxor at no additional cost. Nothing is done in Egypt without a little discussion. When the van got to the West Bank of Luxor to drop off the camel trekking group, we took this opportunity to jump out and walk to the ferry without getting hustled into a friend's hotel. We walked down the dirt road politely nodding to the locals until we got to the motorboats. The local kids seem to be running the show here and they quickly had us on the Nouby boat with a bouquet of flowers heading toward the East bank for 5 Egyptian Pounds. The Nile here is also very scenic but not as much so as Aswan. There is minimal boat traffic due to the lock being closed which reduced the number of tourists hand hawkers. The Nouby boat dropped us off just a block from our hotel selection, Hotel Philippe. There is bargaining for rates in Egypt based on the season and tourist traffic. The hotel was on a crummy looking street but once inside it was not too bad. A solicitous hotel clerk showed me the room while Scooter waited with the bags. The room was 100 EP relatively modern and clean. We took it. Most of the hotels in this area are about the same so it does not make sense to hunt around unless the place is unsuitable. Scooter went to search for an Internet place and after a few false starts found one, everything was OK on the home front.

In Luxor, there is the east side and the west side. The east side is the city proper, the Luxor temple, the Luxor museum and Karnak Temple. Today we would hit the east side and tomorrow the west. We walked toward the Luxor temple hoping to see a bank but got to the temple first with no money to get in. It did not really matter because most of it can be seen from the street. Then somehow we got talked into a kalish (horse drawn carriage), the Rolls Royce of Egypt, found a bank and went on to Karnak Temple...the granddaddy of temples. It must be the biggest and most impressive temple in Egypt. The cost is 20 EP each. The site was constantly embellished over 1500 years and so far the excavated part is 1.5 km by .8 km.

It must be field trip day here at Karnak because the long entrance way is filled with groups of happy Egyptian school kids. They all want to say "hello" to the foreigners, ask our names and how old we are. We had a fun time with them taking pictures and trying to communicate.

The ancient name for Karnak was Ipet-Isut or ‘the most perfect of places' It was built during the middle kingdom period when the Theban pharaohs first came to power and continued to grow throughout the new kingdom rulers. Karnak has awesome reliefs many little areas to explore and pillars like a forest a trees. Needless to say, we were occupied here for several hours.

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This page last changed on 18-Apr-2006 21:15:46 EDT by unknown.