Luxor: Part 2

Wow, so much has happened since Luxor that I'm just going to finish up *talking* about some of the pix from that trip.

*The Colossi of Memnon

*The Valley of the Queens. Cameras were not allowed into the tombs so we can't show you the neat painted interior walls. Not only the queens, but royal children were also buried here.

*The Temple of Hatshepsut. She was the first female pharoh. This is a chapel deep inside the temple. Again, I love all the residual color! I also loved these columns topped with the head of a goddess.

*We also went to the Valley of the Kings, but, again, photos inside the tombs were forbidden. And we were too cheap to buy more postcards.

*Sunset from the top of the Nefertiti Hotel. You should stay there if you go to Luxor. The staff are friendly and offer tours at reasonable prices and don't pressure you into buying them.

*One of the few ways you can make a sunrise even better- in a hot air balloon! The hotel offered balloon rides at the bargain price of 300LE which was less than USD60 at the time, so we had to try it.

*Luxor Temple at sunset and sunrise.

*The mosque built on top of the Luxor Temple. They man who gave us the tour said it was the oldest mosque in Egypt, so I guess built during the 1st century sometime. It's pretty cool to see how they used the column tops and lintels of the temple (and weird to think that they were sticking up out of the ground instead of being up above you). They even carved into one for the mirhab. btw-it was being rebuilt when we were there.

*Taking the train back to Cairo. While we were there the Feast began. (This one celebrated Abrahim about to sacrafice his son to God, then God sending a ram instead.)In the more rural areas you can actually watch the sheep, calfs, and goats being slaughtered but in Cairo that all happens in the less tourist parts of town. Everyone else just has fun in downtown.