Egypt - Luxor

Our Egypt trip ended in Luxor, which was fabulous. In the morning, we visited the Valley of the Kings. This is where the kings started to hide their tombs so that nobody would be able to find and raid it. We could not take pictures here. I wish we could because it was so cool. We went inside the Tomb of King Tut and got to see his mummy! So awesome.

After that, we went to see the Temple of Hatshepsut, one of the most powerful female pharoahs of Egypt. She often depicts herself with a beard because she wanted to be respected and treated just as the male pharoahs.

Her story was so interesting. She pushed her younger brother (who was rightfully entitled to the throne, but very young) to the side and made herself the next pharoah after the death of her father. Out of revenge, her brother supposedly killed her and buried her far away with commoners so that he could have the throne. He then removed almost every image of her from the temple. So much so that it took a very long time for the Egyptologists to discover whose temple it actually was.
If you look at the wall below, you can see that Hatshepsut was chiseled from the wall. She was originally depicted between Horus and Isis below. He did this through the whole temple trying to essentially remove the fact that she ever ruled Egypt from history!
Our next stop was the great Karnak Temple. Many Kings added their mark to this temple. I can't remember for sure, but I think they believed they had to be added to the temple in order to go to the afterlife. The biggest contributor was Ramses II who was the biggest narcissist. Everywhere were huge statues of him.
The pillars were huge!We learned about the fertility god, which Efe is so nicely pointing out below.

One of the most brilliant moves, in my opinion, was Alexander the Great coming in to rule Egypt. He convinced the Egyptians that he believed in their gods. He then added himself to the temple and depicted the gods giving him everlasting life and declaring him a king. Once the gods speak, it is just so. So the Egyptians handed over the throne to him.

We had one day on our own in Luxor. After all of the sightseeing, we were exhausted. We had the best view from our balcony, overlooking the Nile. So, we spent most of the day just sitting there and enjoying the sunshine.
As the evening got closer, we had a massage and then watched the sunset over the Nile from our balcony.
On our way home, in the Luxor airport, I got one last chuckle. We stopped to get a coffee and the guy starts making it in a glass cup. I ask if we can have our coffee in a take-away cup. He then tells me they don't have any. I had a hard time believing that since, as seen in the picture below, the walls were lined with paper cups. He told me they were just for decoration :P

Egypt - Nile Cruise

On our 3rd day in Egypt, we visited Aswan and then boarded a cruise ship on the Nile river that evening. We spend the next couple of days cruising the Nile from Aswan to Luxor, with stops in Kom Ombo and Edfu.

The view from our room was amazing. I moved a chair right next to the door and spent quite some time just staring out the window.


We saw some more temples when we stopped in Edfu and Kom Ombo. At this point, we were starting to get a little tired of the temples :) But, the stories from each temple were great, so it was worth it.


We watched the sunset from the ship as we started sail again towards Luxor.

Egypt Trip - Aswan

Our day in Aswan started by getting aquainted with our cruise ship on the Nile river. While sitting in the reception area, after just arriving, I was chatting with another couple who were their with their 10 year old son. We had both booked through the same travel agency, and they were Americans too. I told them that we live in Amsterdam, and surprisingly they lived in Brussels. Then, I asked if it was work that brought them their, and the man replied that it was for his job. When I asked what he did, he told me he was the US Ambassador to Belgium and had just started the job under the Obama administration. Holy crap! Efe thought he was making it up at first because there were no body guards, but as the trip continued we saw them around incognito.

After getting checked in, we set out to explore the Philae Temple with a small group and tour guide. The temple dates back to the 7th century BC. To get to the temple, we had to take a small boat because it is located on an island.

Most of the temple is dedicated to one of the most important gods in ancient Egyptian history, the Goddess Isis. Isis reminded me greatly of The Virgin Mary. She is the goddess of creation. Isis found all the pieces of her dead husband and used them to bring him back in order to impregnate her so that she could give birth to her divine son, Horus, the god of protection. Isis and Horus together created and sustained life for the Egyptian people. Horus is seen below as the falcon.



The temples on the island were beautiful, along with the setting in the background.

Maro is Stranded

Poor Maro was supposed to fly back to the US yesterday, but it stranded in Amsterdam. The airport is shutdown, along with the airports in 18 other countries because of a volcano that went off in Iceland. She is hoping that she will be able to fly tomorrow, but it is hard to tell right now.
Cnn Article

Egypt Trip - Cairo

We returned from our week long trip in Egypt earlier this week. It was exhausting, but well worth it. We loved Egypt. We started our trip in Cairo. The first night we basically just arrived in Cairo, went straight to the hotel and then to bed. The next morning, we went straight to the pyramids of Giza.

We both climbed up on the Great Pyramid of Giza, and went inside the second pyramid to see the ancient tomb.

On the Great Pyramid of Giza...
We then we for a camel ride through the desert. I didn't realize how high you were off the ground when on a camel, but it really is high!

We next roamed around checking out the Sphinx.

After seeing the pyramids, we went to check out the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. It was fantastic. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take pictures in the museum. But, we got to see 27 mummies! We also saw a replica of the Rosetta Stone, and were told that the British stole it and refuse to give it back to Egypt (it is on display at the British Museum).

The next morning, we left at 5:30am to fly to Aswan.