We departed Aswan early on Monday morning via felucca. A felucca is a traditional Egyptian sailboat. Our destination, eventually, was Luxor. Luxor is a city that is a few hundred miles north of Aswan. We sailed on the felucca all day on Monday, camped Monday night next to an Island in the middle of the Nile, and then finished the trip on Tuesday morning via van.
I am pretty sure that spending all day on a slow boat sailing down the Nile was not my entire group’s favorite part of the trip but I absolutely loved it. Egyptians have been sailing up and down the Nile using the same basic technology for millennia. I, being a sailor, really enjoyed seeing how their sails were rigged, how they handled the boat, and most of all, I really just enjoyed relaxing on a boat all day long. With all of the beautiful girls from my tour on the boat with me, I felt like a real pharaoh.
The night was one of the most fun nights I’ve had on the trip yet. We drank the boat out of wine and beer and our Nubian guides had to go to another boat that was camped down the beach to procure us some more warm beer. They also got out some drums and we had a Nubian sing and dance along which wasn’t good on my foot but how many times am I going to be camped in the middle of the Nile singing with Nubians?
They also busted out some of their classics like, “In the jungle, the mighty jungle.” Afterward, we busted out some of our classics like, “Old McDonald had a farm.” I always forget, though, that every culture has its own words for animal sounds. In Egypt, the cow doesn’t go “moo”, the pig doesn’t go “oink”, and the chicken doesn’t go “cluck-cluck.” So unfortunately, “Old McDonald” is not the best song to bring abroad as no one understands why the chickens in America go cluck-cluck instead of pia-pia. After the Old McDonald disaster, someone figured out that “I’m a little teapot” works much better. All I’ll say about that is that if I ever run for office, I’ll have to fear that some incriminating “I’m a little teapot” photos may surface.
NOTE: I’m a little teapot photos excluded here for the sake of what’s left of my dignity.
Luxor is famous because it was, in antiquity, called Thebes and was the capital of Ancient Egypt for much of its history. Luxor also has the largest temple complex of Ancient Egypt which is called Karnak and is also home to the Valley of the Kings. The Valley of the Kings was the final resting place for most of Egypt’s Pharaohs after the pyramid building age and, in 1922, was where the untouched tomb of King Tut was discovered.
We visited Karnak both at day to explore the sprawling complex and at night to see the sound and light show. During our daytime exploration of the temple, which is impressive as anything else I’ve seen here except for the Great Pyramid, the temperature in the sunlight reached 50 degrees Celsius which is over 120 degrees Fahrenheit. It was hot.
The nighttime sound and light show was fine and I mostly wanted to go because it was featured in the James Bond Movie, “The Spy Who Loved Me.”
When James Bond was at Karnak, it looked something like this:
When I was at Karnak, it looked something like this:
Before the Karnak light show, we took several horse and carriages on a tour around Luxor. This was fun but the coolest part was going through the local market. The street is barely big enough for the market and shoppers and we were barreling through with a horse and carriage. No wonder people hate tourists.
Our last morning in Luxor, we visited the Valley of the Kings. In order to climb up to the valley, we all hopped on donkeys. I always envisioned that this part of my tour would be more like our camel ride from the other day and we would be trekking across the desert like intrepid explorers reading to discover the tomb of a long dead pharaoh. In actuality, all we did was ride in a close cluster up the main road dodging busses and cars full of the other tourists all staring down at us. Watching our donkeys sneeze on us, kick us, and try to buck us, I am sure that they were saying to themselves, “Look at those asses. They’re all riding donkeys.” Between the dirt, donkey snot, and sweat, it must have looked like we all crawled through foxholes by the time that we got to the valley.
It was no big deal though because the Valley was a cool place to visit. They have discovered 62 tombs here the only intact one being King Tut’s. Some of the tombs are closed for restoration but we had time to go into three of them: Ramses 3, Ramses 4, and Tutmoses 3. Though none of them contain their original treasures, the hieroglyphs and art on the walls still holds their original color and is incredibly impressive. Most of the paintings and carvings look like they could have been completed over the last several months and not over 3000 years ago.
(Both pictures from inside the tombs are from the internet)
The tomb of Tutmoses was my favorite because you had to climb up the mountain to get to the entrance and then descend far back down into the same mountain to get to the burial chamber.
Our last big tour of Luxor was the temple of Hachepsut who was the most powerful queen of ancient Egypt. In a society in which women could not rule, she took the title of King and ruled as one for over 20 years. Her mummy very recently discovered and we saw it in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo last week.
It was so hot in Luxor, all we did the rest of the time was hang out in the hotel pool.
Our last big tour of Luxor was the temple of Hachepsut who was the most powerful queen of ancient Egypt. In a society in which women could not rule, she took the title of King and ruled as one for over 20 years. Her mummy very recently discovered and we saw it in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo last week.
It was so hot in Luxor, all we did the rest of the time was hang out in the hotel pool.
2 comments:
Apparently drinking Bud Light and eating Arby's on the back of your old boat while still tied to the dock qualifies you as a "sailor?"
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