Two Glorious and Warm Days in Luxor

April 28th we boarded buses early in the morning for a 3 hour drive to Luxor. According to Egyptian law we had to travel in a convoy headed by a vehicle that contained 6 men with many guns and followed by the same kind of armed vehicle. In addition each bus- and there were 13 going- had to have an armed escort. Now when someone says "police state" I will certainly have a better feel for that. The convoy caused all people and vehicles to wait at intersections and many, many check points. Our guard on the bus had a fold-over automatic rifle of some sort strapped to his waist but he never took his jacket off so I guess we weren't supporsed to notice it. At each crossing in the road- no matter how large or small- there was someone also armed with a rifle holding back the traffic. When we left to come back to the ship the next day we repeated the convoy process. The police used mirrors and checked under the bottom of the bus.

BUT aside from that...and maybe because of that... the trip was wonderful. The image of us is at Karnak Temple, the heart of the cult of the God of Amon. Each pharoah added his own contribution to the temple. We saw huge columns with drawings and letters telling the stories of conquests, prisoners, worship and ideas of life after death. There were enormous statues of Ramses II who was believed to be the Pharoah in Moses' time. We saw a beautiful obelisk made from one piece of pink marble to remember Queen Hatshepsut- or as our guide told us to remember her name as "hot chicken soup." As we walked thorugh the temple we had the sense of going back in time. The temple ended at the Sacred Lake where ceremonial boats took part in the worship of Amon.

We visited Luxor Temple which was originally built in the reign of Amenophis III and expanded greatly by Ramses II. Turns out this particular Pharoah named Ramses was terrible impressed with himself and put his face and image all over most everything we saw.

We spent the night at the Le Meridian Hotel which was quite nice. Had a lovely view over the Nile with the unusually rigged sailboats sailing all around.

The next morning we went to The Valley of the Kings. Seeing those tombs...and I went into three tombs with brilliant colors and narrow passage ways- was something. We all have to repaint our houses every 5 years or so and here we were looking at colors from 2000BC-amazing. There must be more than a dozen tombs you could enter but Ahmed told us the three he thought were the best and that is what I did. Jim stayed on the bus to be cool. I also did a dumb thing and dropped my new camera. And I expect it will now have to be sent somewhere to be cleaned. What a dope I am.

We learned that Egypt has some serious problems with their economy. Ninety-five percent of the land is uninhabited making the other 5% very crowded. Ahmed, our guide, said a baby was born every 23 seconds in Egypt. The government has tried to work to reclaim more of the desert with irrigation, build new cities and get people to move but most people want to be near their families. The housing had long rods sticking from the top. You can move into a house before it is finished and if it isn;t finished you can always add another story on top for expanded family living. We saw lots of donkeys- carrying sugar cane and people. They are called Egyptian Cadillacs...or so Ahmed said. We were amazed to see the lush green fields of sugar cane, hay, green grass for the animals, corn and other crops near the Nile and just on the other side of the street it turned to arid, dry desert. Water does make a big difference.

It was a good visit to Luxor.