A Wonderful Day on the West Bank!

Hello!

 

We had a really lovely evening last night, with our new friends Bob and Colleen, from Boise.  They had spent the day exploring the Valley of the Kings, and were, as we had been on our last visit here, “tombed out!”  They are really both fun and enjoyable folks to talk with, and I am hopeful that we can continue our conversations sometime in the future, possibly in Tucson!  For dinner, we went to Silk Road, one of the other hotel restaurants.  I had seafood tempura, as well as chicken and beef sate.  Robert had vegetable pakora for a starter, and then followed that up with teriyaki beef and rice.  

 

R's veggie pakora

My seafood tempura

Our day, as I posted yesterday, had been spent at the Luxor Museum.  Today, we got up at 6 am and met Abdul, our taxi driver, at 8 am.  Abdul, bless his heart, is an excellent driver, and speaks great English.  He is making our trip here so much easier for us.  The problem here in Luxor is that there is no Uber to use, and Careem, an Uber-associated website, is inaccessible to us without a Sim card, which we don’t have.  So, it’s either taxi from place to place, or join an existing tour (which we are REALLY loathe to do!), or schedule our own car and driver through a travel agency.  I think in finding Abdul, that we have found the perfect solution!  Abdul is not pushy in the least – and has suggested NO factory stores that we need to see – so no alabaster, no cartouches (which I already have), no carpet “schools” and no perfume shops!  Yeah!!  We have booked him for both tomorrow and Friday, and something tells me we will be seeing him over the weekend as well!

 

Secondly, the nice thing about the timing of this trip, is that we are able to take things at a pace that suits us (slowly!) and see as much or as little as we want.  We had such a nice day yesterday – museum until lunchtime and then back to the hotel for naps, blogging, etc.  We’d rather like that to continue!  So, tomorrow (which is the day we switch from the Hilton Luxor Resort to the Winter Palace Hotel) we are going to see Luxor Temple in the morning, come back to the hotel, check out and move to the Winter Palace and settle in!

 

To explain:  There are several “historic” hotels in the area.  The last time we were here, we stayed at what was then the Sheraton (now the ACHTI) as the Winter Palace was full.  (SO much nicer when I can book hotels myself!!)  We did walk through the Winter Palace, and I have to admit that it really looked lovely.  So, this time, I made our own reservation (thank you, computers!) and we are checking in tomorrow.  On a side note, the reason that we are at the Hilton is that I had originally planned for us to be driven to Amarna (Al-Minya) for a couple of nights.  However, after being on Egyptian roads, we decided that 5½ hours one way was NOT going to much fun, and then we’d have to drive back those same 5½ hours two days later.  So, I booked us into theHilton Luxor, giving us lots of time in Luxor.  The Hilton is rated as the #1 place to stay in town, and it has been fine, but for one thing.  Our lovely room is above the pool area, and while it hasn’t really been noisy at all, they do insist on playing music most of the day.  I will be SO glad to get away from that!  Also, the Hilton is a few kilometers from the center of town, while the Winter Palace is actually on the Corniche, which is the center part of town.  

 

So…Abdul was exactly on time this morning, and in a few minutes we were heading to the West Bank.  Turns out that the ONLY bridge across the Nile here is about 8 km south of town; quite a drive, even though traffic in Luxor is nothing like the chaotic driving in either Cairo or Aswan.  Very, very lovely and organized city, for sure!  (Abdul tells us that there is another bridge currently being constructed on the other end of town, which will make getting to the Valley of the Kings much quicker – but of course it’s not done yet!) 

 

Our first stop was the Colossi of Memnon.  The Colossi were built for Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who built the largest of all funerary temples there on the west bank.  The ruins are currently being excavated.  The magnificent colossi, each cut from a single block of stone and weighing 1000 tons, sat at the eastern entrance to Amenophis III’s funerary temple.  [Amenhotep III was the father of Amenhotep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten (the Heratic Pharaoh) and the grandfather of King Tut.]  The on-going excavations are bringing to light some amazing artifacts, and there is a huge area quite littered with statues and masonry that has long lain underground.  This is one site that promises to be really incredible when/if it is completed.  

 

These things are HUGE!

Detail carved on statue

From the Colossi, we next headed to the Temple of Hatshepsut, the woman pharaoh who had, starting in 1479 BC, served as regent for her step-son, Tuthmosis III.  In the long history of Egypt, there were several women who were pharaohs but Hatshepsut was, to us, outstanding.  After several years of the regency, she had herself proclaimed as Pharaoh (1473 BC) and reigned until 1458 BC, a period of peace and prosperity in Egypt.  Alas, upon becoming pharaoh in his own right, Tuthmosis III ordered all evidence of Hatshepsut to be eased.  A mummy believed to be Hatshepsut was found some years ago and is now on display at the Museum of Egyptian Civilization in Cairo.

 

This temple is HUGE too!

Sphinx with face of Hatshepsut

An entire row of Hatshepsut statues, some restored

The interesting thing here is that so much has changed in the last 23 years!  The entrance now has a bazaar through which you walk to the ticket office, and then there are large golf carts to transport – 10 Egyptian Pounds – about 34¢ each.  Such a deal! 

 

Temple of Hathor (Cow Goddess)

Hatshepsut’s temple is stunning.  It sits at the base of rugged limestone cliffs that rise nearly 300 m above the desert plain.  The almost modern-looking temple blends in beautifully with the cliffs from which it is partly cut, and the temple itself has been most amazingly and painstakingly reconstructed by a joint venture from Poland and Egypt.  Imagining what it must have looked like, with courtyards planted with exotic trees and plants, it was actually linked due east across the Nile to the Temple of Karnak.  

 

Love the palm trees

Courtyard on middle level

Inside Temple of Anubis

Carving of Horus

One of the row of statues on upper level

They're big!

Inner Courtyard Upper level

Inner sanctuary, upper level (much baksheesh)

Sanctuary, upper level

Some of the wall carvings still had evidence of brilliant color, which seems so impossible somehow, considering the age of the temple.  Once again, we were very, very lucky to arrive early – before almost every tour bus! – and we actually had some of the very special places – the Hathor Chapel, the Chapel of Anubisand the Sanctuary of Amun completely to ourselves!  The benefits of getting up and out early!  SOOO glad!  By the time we were finished here, the parking lot was filling up, and it looked like a plague of locusts were heading our way!  

 

Walking back out through the bazaar, I actually succumbed to temptation, and looked at a shirt in one of the stalls.  No idea whatsoever how the young man figured out what size I wear, but yes, I bought a shirt, and no, I didn’t bargain.  Just don’t have it in me, I guess!  (Don’t sigh like that, John Spiller!). And it fits, which is even more amazing!!  We sat at the café there and had a Coke – sometimes it’s nice to sit and relax … and have a bit of sugar!

 

Anubis figure in front of temple

Ramesseum

Note fallen statue of Ramses in the middle

Incredibly deeply incised carvings

Parts of the big Ramses statue

One of Ramses cartouches

Ramses driving chariot against the Hittites

Again, this guy liked to build big!

Center pillars of temple

Lovely colors on ancient columns

One last stop today, and that was the Ramesseum (which I still cannot pronounce properly)! 

First of all, we had the entire site to ourselves.  No idea why more tourists don’t come here, but according to Abdul, most tour guides feel there is enough to see just in the Valley of the Kings, that the Ramesseum isn’t that important!  But it was WONDERFUL!  This is Ramses II (the Pharaoh who ruled for something like 66 years) massive memorial – he called it “The Temple of Millions of Years of User-Maat-Ra.”  Unlike the well-preserved structures that Ramses II built at Karnak and Abu Simbel, his memorial temple has not survived the times very well.  It has been extensively restored, but is mot famous for the scattered remains of fallen statues that inspired the poem “Ozymandias” by the English poet, Shelley.  One really interesting thing is that RamsesII had his artisans carve his walls very, very deeply – the deepest we’ve seen yet.  Apparently, his thinking was that then no other Pharaoh could come along and erase his name or images, as his were engraved too deeply!  Interesting thought, and obviously it worked!  One of the other interesting things about this particular temple, is that Ramses II wrote and illustrated visually about his “defeat” of the Hittites at Kadesh in the Levant in 1274 BC – which, truth be told, wasn’t a defeat of the Hittites at all, but rather a tie, and Ramses II was very lucky to escape with that!  (If I sound pro-Hittite, it’s only because I AM!).  Later, the Egyptians and the Hittites signed a peace treaty (signed by Ramses II and Hattusili) in 1269 BC, the oldest known peace treaty and now on display at the United Nations.  Again, we were so surprised to have the entire place to ourselves!  Let’s hear it for getting out early!

 

My new cotton shirt!

Even though we had started out at 8 am, it was past lunchtime by the time we had arrived back to the hotel.  Said goodbye to Abdul; he’ll pick us up at 7:30 am tomorrow.  R was feeling a bit peckish, so after dropping off “stuff” and having a wash and brush-up, we went down by the pool for lunch.  A very nice menu, actually, and the food was great!  R ordered a plain Marguerite pizza, which he thoroughly enjoyed, and I had a hamburger with cheese!  It was enormous, but it came with fries, and I enjoyed it very much!  Also, two nice glasses of Egyptian wine and four small bottles of sparkling water!  In now for rest; R just up from a nap, and now we’ll head to photos!

 

More later!

m

xxx