Adventure Post: Egypt Tour Part 2

If you haven't read part one, go check it out!

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From the Kom Ombo, we headed over to the Luxor Temple for a night tour. Unknown to us, touring temples at night is apparently a huge tourist draw. The temple was packed with tourists and tours.

This temple was connected to the Karnack Temple by the Avenue of Sphinxes, and, unlike most temples, wasn't dedicated to any specific god, cult, or triad. Instead, it was dedicated to reinvigorating the notion of kingship (even Alexander the Great claimed to have been crowned the king of Egypt at Luxor). One of the [apparently] controversial mythological aspects of this temple was a carving that portrayed a fertile man and the making of a child. Casual observers and conspiracy theorists claim that the engravings represent sperm cells, based on their similar shape, which the ancient Egyptians had no way of knowing. Our guide passed on this thought, but the clarified the reality: the carvings portray water pouring out of a container, symbolising "watering the seed" to make it grow.

Interestingly, there was an active mosque at the temple. As was the case at other sites, religions which came later occupied part of the site to spread and preach their faith. The Abu Haggag Mosque was originally a Christian church established by the Romans in the 4th Century AD, and was converted to a Mosque in 640 AD with the arrival of Islam. It is one of the oldest sites in the world of continuous religious worship, with 3400 years of religions occupying its halls.

This was a long day, from four hours on a bus to Karnack Temple to Kom Ombo to Luxor, so we were glad to have time in the hotel to relax. Well, one of us, anyways. Jo signed up for the hot air balloon ride to watch the sunset the next morning, which came with an obnoxiously early wake-up call. Unfortunately, the hotel decided to give us the wake-up call with the phone...which was right beside Jack's head as he tried to sleep. He was...not happy.

The first stop for the full tour was the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut was both the Great Royal Wife to Thutmose II and, eventually, the Egpyptian pharaoh. Her temple was interesting, because it was dedicated to several different gods, depending on which chapel you were in, in addition to being her burial site. The temple dedicated to Anubis, while exposed to the sun most of the day, still housed quite vibrant paintings, most of which was original. It also had a number of elaborate landscape carvings depicting the Nile, elephants, turtles, and other animals.

This temple was still under excavation, and several sites were blocked off as archaeologists and Egyptologists were actively studying the site. Hatshepsut's mortuary site was one of the blocked off areas, so unfortunately we didn't go in. From pictures we've seen, the colours there really shine, as they are protected from the sun. An Egyptian man offered to let us go in for a fee, but we didn't take him up on his offer. We figured either 1) we would be contributing to the tourist trap problem most sites in Egypt have with locals offering an "authentic" experience or 2) (our greater concern) the area was roped off for excavation and preservation, and we really had no business going in.

Something that struck us both at this site was how prevalent Instagram culture is at ancient sites like this one. We were at an amazing archaeological site full of history, which was the whole point of this tour, and most of our tour group spent the majority of their time there trying to get the perfect picture for social media. On the one hand, sure, this would be the only time they visited these sites, so there won't be another chance to get the great pics, but on the other this would be the only time they visited these sites! They were really missing out (and getting in peoples' way).

From there, we headed to the Valley of the Kings. This was a literal valley where many pharaohs and kings were buried in underground tombs, including King Tut. At the time of our visit, there were 62 known tombs, but only some of them were open to the public. The entrance ticket came with admittance to three of the tombs; any extra ones meant you had to get another ticket. Naturally, as is the case with any major attraction for Western tourism dollars, King Tut's tomb cost extra, even though the vast majority of his artifacts and belogings were at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Being on a budget, we opted to skip his tomb and see three that Meena recommended to us.

Because the tombs are protected from sunlight, most of their paintings and carvings were in extremely could condition, even the ones which hadn't been restored. Some of the areas were roped or blocked off to protect them from tourists would, incidentally or otherwise, damage them. The individual tombs are not that big themselves, so it didn't take long to see the three included with our ticket. We decided (much to Meena's relaxation) to grab a coffee while we waited for the rest of the group rather than wander the rest of the site.

At this point, the tour became really relaxed. We took a ten hour bus ride to Hurghada, a popular tourism area on the Gulf of Suez, where we would spend two nights at an all-inclusive resort. We had dinner at a so-called Irish Pub (which served no Irish pub food nor Guinness), relaxed on the beach, had ice cream and waffles, and napped. Jo and Meena played volleyball with some Russians, too.

After we had our fill of the all-inclusive resort (well, we did, some in the group didn't), we headed back to Cairo. We wandered the local market (and by wandered, we mean got lost), took a tour of the Cairo Museum, and headed back to the original hotel. It was a cool day, but not much to write home about. The Cairo museum was full of artifacts and mummies, most of them unprotected from both tourists touching them and the sun shining down on them. We both had to hold our tongue more than once at tourists touching (or even standing on!) artifacts to take pictures. We figured if the museum clearly didn't care about it, then neither should we.

Unfortunately, pictures of King Tut's collection were not allowed. To this day we don't know why, but they were strictly enforcing the rules. One lady even got on to Jack for responding to a message from a friend while in the room, because she thought he was taking a picture.

On departure day, we got to sleep in and take our time checking out. Most hotels and hostels in the Middle East / North Africa had a check-out time of noon, which was great for us, seeing as we were staying in the city. Most of the rest of the tour, though, had a super early wake up to get to the airport to fly out. By this point, we'd learned they weren't morning people, and they argued for a later time, but there wasn't no way they were getting it. Cairo's streets are crazy, and it takes a solid 90 minutes to 2 hours to get to the airport, even though it isn't that far away.

Because we were staying local, we got to decide our departure time. We decided to stay until noon before heading to Holy Sheets Hostel for the night. Gone were the days of all-inclusive resorts, free transportation, and someone else making all of the decisions for us!

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