Egypt Day Seven, Christmas Day in Cairo

We spent Christmas Day seeing the Mosque of Muhammad Ali then driving to Saqqara, the Pyramids, Cheops, the Sphinx and the Valley Temple.

Below: The Mosque was very beautiful, but more importantly, I felt the Spirit there.  Our guide, Lazm, was a devout Muslim and he spoke to us about his faith.  At one sight he asked us to look around, while he did his afternoon prayers.  We could tell that he was sincere in his beliefs.

Below:  Saqqara, featuring the Step Pyramid of Djoserh It was unusually cold and very windy--the sand blew in our eyes.

Below:  From there we went to Giza and saw the Khufu ship, restored and preserved in the Giza Solar boat museum on the south side of the Great Pyramid of Giza.  You can read more about it online,

Below:

At the Great Pyramid we walked inside up a steep set of steps to the King's Chamber to see the sarcophagus.  It was terrifying!  It was very warm, very crowded and the pathway in some spots only allowed for one line of people, but two lines existed--one trying to go up, and the other trying to go down.  I'm glad we didn't try it later in the spring when it would have been way too hot to attempt.

Let me assure you there was not this much light in the tunnel (above)

After a harrowing walk up we found the sarcophugus

The walk back down was almost as terrifying, as so many people were trying to go up and there wasn't room for two people to pass each other without squeezing by each other and feeling the press of the group trying to start the walk up.

The Giza Pyramids, built to endure an eternity, have done just that. The monumental tombs are relics of Egypt's Old Kingdom era and were constructed some 4,500 years ago.

Egypt's pharaohs expected to become gods in the afterlife. To prepare for the next world they erected temples to the gods and massive pyramid tombs for themselves—filled with all the things each ruler would need to guide and sustain himself in the next world.Pharaoh Khufu began the first Giza pyramid project, circa 2550 B.C. His Great Pyramid is the largest in Giza and towers some 481 feet (147 meters) above the plateau. Its estimated 2.3 million stone blocks each weigh an average of 2.5 to 15 tons.

Khufu's son, Pharaoh Khafre, built the second pyramid at Giza, circa 2520 B.C. His necropolis also included the Sphinx, a mysterious limestone monument with the body of a lion and a pharaoh's head. The Sphinx may stand sentinel for the pharaoh's entire tomb complex.

The third of the Giza Pyramids is considerably smaller than the first two. Built by Pharaoh Menkaure circa 2490 B.C., it featured a much more complex mortuary temple.  Here are the steps to the mortuary temple that still remain:

Each massive pyramid is but one part of a larger complex, including a palace,temples, solar boat pits, and other features.

The mortuary steps leading to the mortuary temple:

Egypt Day Six: Abu Simbel

On the morning of December 24th we flew to Aub Simbel just to see the Abu Simbel temples.  They are on the bank of Lake Nasser and were originally carved out of the mountainside in the 13th century BC and were monuments to Ramses II and his wife Nefertari.  The complex was relocated in 1968 because the lake, created by the building of the Aswan High Dam.

We were only at Abu Simbel for 45 minutes and then were whisked back to the airport to fly to Cairo.  I took a picture of the poinsettias at the Hilton Heliopolis Hotel, which gave it a little bit of  Christmas feel!

Egypt Day Five: Drive to Edfu, Kom Ombo, Philae, Unfinished Obelisk

This day was another very interesting day as we drove through the countryside and desert.

Above:  These were all the carriages lined up to take people from their Nile cruise ships to Edfu.  We were so glad that we had not taken the Nile Cruise or the carriage rides.

Below:  Sites at Edfu

Below: The Temple of Kom Ombo, is a double temple constructed in the Ptolemaic dynasty, it celebrates crocodiles which in ancient times were plentiful in the Nile River.  I must have been on photo overload, because this is the only picture I took at Kom Ombo.

Below: On the way to the Unfinished Obelisk, which was ordered by Queen Hatshepsut.  It shows how obelisks were carved directly out of bedrock, but this one began to crack, so the project was abandoned.  

Below:  On the river cruise to Philae Temple, which was dismantled and moved to higher ground before the 1970 Aswan Higher Dam was built.  There had already been a great deal of flooding in the area and this move protected the Philae Temple from further damage.

Egypt Day Four Valley of the Kings, Nobles and workers

On day four we visited several sites, The Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Nobles, and the Valley of the workers, who built, sculpted and painted the tombs of the kings and nobles, called Deir el Medina, Queen Hatsepshut temple, Colossi Memnon, and mortuary temple of Ramses III called Medinet Habu.

Top four pictures in Valley of the Kings.  This last picture shows a crew restoring one of the areas.  I was told that they do not repaint the pictures, but brush the dust off of them only.

Queen Hatshepsut's Temple (above and below) with our guide, Rafit, a PhD Egyptologist, very knowledgeable and helped us learn to read hieroglyphs and understand the Egyptian gods.

Note the statues behind us

Below is one of the Noble's burial places

Below:  Valley of the Workers
We saw carvings and paintings in their dwellings, but the ceilings we lower and the rooms smaller.  The paintings and carvings were simpler.  The workers had to do their own places in their spare time.

Egypt Day 3: Abydos and Dendara

Egypt Day 2: Karnak and Luxor Temple

We were driven from Luxor airport to the Karnak Temple.  We were so excited to be there and especially wanted to see the depictions of  Pharoah being made ready to go through the veil to God, that Lee's dad had seen and was so excited about.  We did see the depictions, but they were too high up for our camera to get a picture.

Causeway between Karnak and Luxor

                                                  Inside main gates of Karnak

 

                                                                 Obelisk of Hatshepsut

 Light opening into Temple ante room.  Notice the brightly painted ceiling still intact

Karnak

Karnak with obelisk behind

Every opening to let in light is lined up with the entrance to the Holy of Holies

Some places we saw as we drove from Karnak to Luxor--nice views of the Nile River too.

Luxor Temple

City scene on our way to the hotel--the Steigenberger Hotel

The hotel was very nice, and you had to take a boat ride to get to it.  This is the view from our room

Sunset on the Nile

The hotel celebrating Christmas and the New Year. We had a lovely  time here and had 3 dinners--1 Lebanese and 2 Italian.  The waiters were amazed that we left tips!

Walking outside the hotel was not a lot of fun.  We were accosted by several hawkers who wouldn't take "No Thank you" for an answer until we got kind of mean about it.  One guy kept walking with us.  We tried a different tactic--we gave him a dollar to leave us alone.  But even that didn't really work, as he found us again on our way home and tried to sell us more stuff!  So, we stayed in most of the time and enjoyed the sunsets!

We learned that everyone has to be given a tip!  Even the bathrooms had attendants that you had to tip.  Overall, the people were very nice and we had such a great experience.  Egypt in December was truly lovely at about 70-75 degrees.  We were very careful to only use bottled water and cooked vegetables.  Lee ate some fruit at the hotels, but I did not want to take a chance of getting sick.  We had nuts, granola bars, and protein bars for lunches and also some bread that we took from our breakfast buffets.  The buffets were very good--way more food than we could eat.  The dinners were part of our hotel payment and we had our choice of a couple of them at both hotels.  The last night in Luxor we needed to get some money.  We had tried the day before with no luck, and finally had to go to a bank.  Once we got back to the hotel I saw that the debit card Lee had was  not in his wallet.  He must have dropped it between the ATM machine and the bank!  ACKKK!!!  We ended up emailing Chris Bean, our financial adviser, and he was able to cancel the card--he has helped us with so many things this year!