Egypt - Luxor, Esna, Edfu, Kom ombo 2019
Day 3rd! We took an airplane to Luxor, there we took a cruise ship in the Nilo lake, but the cruise was not going to start until the next night, so we spent that day walking, buying some things and putting our things in the cruise. The cruise had a buffet breakfast where you can taste how they cook their food in Egypt.
It’s Day 4th! We woke up early because we were going to the Karnak and Luxor temple, made in honor of Amon God. Luxor temple is smaller than the Karnak one but both are united by an avenue of Sphinxes. Be sure that you arrive early, so you can watch the down just in the middle of the avenue of Sphinxes. This temple have a really big space with a lot of sculptures and hieroglyphs to see, even in the ceiling, so don't forget to look up. Also, I did a little friend there, it was a gray cat. Who knows, maybe Bastet God came to say hello.
After spending hours in the Karnak and Luxor temple, we went to the Valley of the Kings. In this big beautiful place, the kings of Egypt have rest. I hope that you have a lot of space in your camera roll because you would love to take photos there. Not all the tombs are available to the public, but a lot of them are. You will have to walk a lot because the tombs are separated. You'll be able to enter and see how the tombs were inside. They have a big entrance and a path that goes down. Inside it has a lot of hieroglyphs full of color and really well conserved.
Then, we went to Deir El Bahari, the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, the first woman to use the position of Pharaoh. If you go there, you are going to see how a lot of hieroglyphs are damaged, this is because they tried to erase her from the history, there are theories about it, but we don't know exactly why they tried to erase her.
In any case, there is a hieroglyphic that reveal her existence, and you can find it in some of the walls of her temple.
But the day didn't end there! After spending hours in Deir El Bahari, We went to see the Colossi of Memnon. Those are really big statues from more than 3.500 years and represents the Pharaoh Amenhotep III.
After that, we came back to the cruise ship and we enjoyed good food and open space to dance. After a few moments, the cruise started moving.
The next day, Day 5th, we went to Edfu temple, the temple of Horus God, this is one of the biggest temples in Egypt and you can perceive it by the big and imposing entrance. Inside there are rooms you can enter so you can see the hieroglyphs inside, most of them tell the story of Horus, for example, did you heard about the Horus eye? Its origin came from the fights that Horus had with his uncle Seth in revenge for his father's death. That story is also in those walls. Also, the hieroglyphs tell us about the language and religion of Greco-Roman period.
Then we went to Kom Ombo to visit the only temple dedicated to 2 gods; Sobek and Haroeris. Some of the hieroglyphs are very well conserved and some still have color. The tourist guide told us that the farthest hieroglyphs from the front door talked about medicines they used but some of the hieroglyphs are destroyed so we don't know much about it.
We came back to the cruise ship because the next day we were going to wake up in Aswan.
Even if I can tell you about the world, the best experience is live it by yourself. Have fun!
Tips:
- Be punctual to your tours or arrive early if you can, you don't want to lose those opportunities.
- A lot of sellers are going to try to convince you to buy some of their things, so look first what shop do you want to enter.
- If you go late to the temples, remember to bring mosquito repellent.
