Day 7 – The Real Luxor
Quick aside, the first
time I visited Las Vegas I was about 8 years old. My favorite hotel, for no
real reason, was the Luxor hotel, because of the cool pyramid style. I realize
that doesn’t mean much, but I just remembered that today when I started this
portion of my trip, beginning in Luxor, embarking on a Nile River cruise.
The cruise was on the
M/S Alyssa Nile, part of the Nile Dolphin line of cruises. There are basically
millions of boats that go up and down the Nile River, from Cairo, Aswan &
Luxor. There is obviously a sizable range of prices and qualities, and I went
squarely in the higher end of the middle third. What that meant is the ship
isn’t owned by Movenpick or some large hotelier/hospitality group. That said,
the reviews were all solid, and numerous (more on that in a moment). The boat
looked large enough, clean, modern, and the tours covered everything that you
would want from Luxor, Esna, Edfu & Aswan, basically all of the things one
would do on their own without the aid of a floating hotel and a guide.
I was told, for some
reason, to come to the boat at 10AM, but the real check-in was only 12. Of
course, I only realized this after checking out of the Hilton Resort (a
beautiful resort, one that I sadly spent very little time in) and checking on
the boat. I did give me an extra nap, and staring out at the Nile River, with
the Valley of the Kings in the background. The rooms are large enough, clean and
all offer great views – lucky I had a river view and not the view of the dock.
Other people finally
started arriving around noon, with lunch starting in their main dining room at
1pm. At lunch time, it was a group of about 40 of us on the boat, well below
their normal capacity of 135, but not so few that it was jarring. If anything,
the fewer people was nice as it only ended up that seven of us spoke English as
a first langage and needed an English guide.
At 2:30pm, we left the
boat for a tour of the Temples of Luxor and Karnak, Luxor City’s two main
attractions. In between the two we were shuttled into the Papyrus ‘Museum’,
which was 20% museum in that one of the workers gave us a history of the
papyrus plant and how to turn it into papyrus paper – actually interesting –
and 80% time for us to walk around and see the artwork for sale. I will say
this, it was the least pushy of this type of clearly sales stop that I’ve been
on on a tour like this. When I chose a small piece that was their cheapest
price option, they even threw in a bookmark sized piece of papyrus with my name
in hieroglyphics for 20 Egyptian Pounds (~$1). For what can be an annoying
price of doing business on trips like this, it wans’t really that bad.
Going backwards to the
Karnak Temple, Luxor’s actual tourist attractions are excellent. A lot of it
was rebuilt from excavated rubble/partially complete structures, but if we
assume they are accurate re-creations, both temples were stunning. The Karnak
Temple was built in honor of Amun-Ra (the Zeus of Egyptian Gods), built
initially around 1,700 BC, but added on by various Kings down to the Greek,
Roman and Christian conquerors of Egypt. The setting was sprawling, with
multiple open courts, status of Ramses and other Kings and Queens (including King
(Tut)ankhamen and Queen Nefertiti), a few obelisks and many, many surviving
columns. The only pinge of sadness was when the guide told us that there were
initially 20 obelisks, and only two left after some had been destroyed and most
stolen or “gifted” to countries around the world (including the US).
The Karnak Temple also
had more in-tact hieroglyphics and carvings than many of the sites in Cairo did
(admittedly, the Cairo sites are older) and that led to a lot more information
on what each represented. Most represented Kings offering various animals and
food and incense to Amun-Ra, or priests doing the same. One interesting note
was the central inner sanctuary was supposedly redesigned by each King who
could paint and carve over what the previous king did. In each temple, the last
King to do so was Alexander the Great, who apparently went to many lengths to
pretend to be Egyptian in these temples.
The second temple was
the Luxor Temple, built for Amun-Ra’s wife goddess, though there was nary a
statue of her. Again, it was an iterative building, with the inside being built
by the early Egyptians, the front being built by Ramses II, parts added by King
Tut, and then built over by the Christians and Muslims as mud encased the lower
parts of the temple.
The Luxor Temple was
not as large as the Karnak Temple, but better preserved, and with the sun
slowly receding over to the West (where death occurs – hence the Kings being
laid to rest on that side), the lighting was perfect to make that temple come
to life.
There were multiple
statues of Ramses in both seated and warring position, good alabaster status of
King Tut and Wife (his half-sister), really good carvings commissioned by
Alexander the Great, all to make him look as Egyptian as possible, and even a courtyard
where the Romans painted over the carvings and you could see the familiar Roman
style art & architecture that would come to be so pervasive throughout the
world.
The Luxor temple
really did have endless perfect photo opportunities, be it rows of carvings,
statues, statues perforating between the columns, open squares fit for
panoramas. Both temples really spoke to how advanced at building the Ancient
Egyptians were, and how intertwined their ruling class and religion/mythology
was. Both temples were startilingly well preserved, if even to make me wonder
how much touching up was done in recent years, but to think as recently as
1850, the Luxor Temple was fully underground encased in mud. However they
excavated back then, in the days before the lightbulb, is amazing.
Around 6:30pm, we
headed back to the boat, tired and sweaty, even after the winds picked up
following sun-set. It’s an odd cruise in that it is four days & nights, but
only two involve much sailing. The cruise began today (Thursday) in Luxor, but
we are not leaving Luxor until tomorrow afternoon. We reach Aswan on Sunday
morning, and are there until disembarkation on Monday morning. In all reality,
this is about a 7 hour drive that is slowed down to a leisurely four days. I’m
all for it, a great escape from the never-ending bustle (mostly good) in Cairo.
Dinner on the boat was
nice, buffet style with good chicken, veal & fish dishes acoompanied with
the normal Egyptian Mezze. At the very least, it is finally some respite from
the kebabs and koftas of Cairo. I settled in after dinner to the Sir Livingston
lounge, named after and decorated in honor of some old colonial explorer of
Africa. They only had local spirits (apart from some aperitifs and post-dinner
specialties), so I enjoyed a few Egyptian whiskeys, which actually weren’t too
bad. Definitely cheaper, which given how over-priced alcohol is in most places
in Cairo, was welcome as well.
The cruise is a more
leisurely way to see the Nile Valley, but one that takes appropriate time. For
the traveler on a time constraint, a more direct approach can accomplish
visiting the same sites in half the time, but for someone like me where time is
not as much a concern, there is nothing better.
