Day 4: Luxor

Didn't sleep well, ugh. We met our guide in Luxor. His name is Akhmed. He has the same birthday as me, but he's a few years older. In Cairo, our security guard, also named Akhmed, was only a week or two older than me. I've decided, because of these coincidences, to call myself Akhmed - it's my temporary Egyptian name.

We went to the Temples of Karnak and Luxor. They were amazing! I walked through massive fortresses of stone that have lasted through the eons. In Karnak there are something like 134 huge columns as well as a ton of giant statues, sphinxes, and a few solid granite obelisks. Everything is covered with art and hieroglyphs and the graffiti of the centuries - some of the graffiti has dates in the 1800s on it! Karnak was at one time used by the Romans as a Christian temple too, so there are remains of Christian frescos and some Roman columns and arches as well. Our guide was very informative - I can't repeat all the stories here, but a lot of fascinating stuff has happened here in the last several thousand years... We visited the Temple of Luxor as well. It was a smaller and had some different styles of columns. Both temples still had places where the paint on the columns and walls still had color - that is amazing in itself. Paint that lasts thousands of years - I gotta get some of that next time I paint my house.

The morning was rough because our 5 A.M. breakfast consisted of only a few pieces of individually wrapped bread and some butter and jelly and we didn't get to eat again until around noon. We were all extremely low on energy walking around the temples. Luxor is also a little hotter and drier than Cairo. It's a city of only 400,000 compared to the 25 million in Cairo, and it's much further south in a more arid area. I found it much more laid back than Cairo and a little prettier. If compared to Arizona, I would say Cairo is like Phoenix, and Luxor is like Tempe or Scotsdale - a little nicer and a lot smaller.

When we got back to the hotel, I spent some cash and a lot of time trying to figure out my internet and phone card situation. I don't think I really figured anything out. I put $30 on this phone card, but the "local" numbers were in Cairo, which is long distance from Luxor, or in the U.K., which is definitely long distance. Whatever. I used it anyway. I was missing Andrea and I knew she would be worried about me because I meant to call her the day before but I didn't get the chance to... Communication with the outside world is so difficult right now because of the tour - I can't just go off and find a cafe with wireless access because we've got a full schedule every day.

After talking to Andrea, I went back upstairs and got ready for dinner followed by a "sound and light show" back at the Temple of Karnak. The sound and light show was cheesy - lots of over-the-top British voice acting with bad 70's adventure movie music. It was basically a re-telling of all the stories our guide told us earlier but through a loudspeaker system and at night with weird lighting everywhere. It was kinda cool going to the temple at night though. The sky here is so clear and blue. The horizons in all directions are breathtaking - the yellow sand meeting the blue, blue sky... I tried to capture some of it in photos, but they don't really do it justice. Near the end of the show, the city came alive with the Muslim evening call to prayer. I was annoyed because the show was not that interesting to me and I wanted to hear the city, but it was drowned out. I wish I could have been sitting on a dune just above the city, in complete silence. I wish I could have been there as the city came to life to bay at the moon with a cacophony of lilting chants going out over loudspeakers every few blocks... Oh well. Maybe one day I will come back. Or maybe I will find that experience in Istanbul where I will have no schedule... I hope so. The Muslim world has some very beautiful aspects to it.

Masa' ul-khayri (good evening),
Akhmed