So now that we were free of the boat, permanently back on solid ground in Luxor, and loaded up into our driver's car, we were off to Karnak Temple, one of the largest temples in Egypt left to visit. While we drove through the city, I notice how thick the air had become with smoke, from all of the burning in the fields (something you can see in the photos from our hot air balloon ride the day before). Not only was the air heavy, but it smelled of burnt debris.

We stopped along the way so Amir could show us part of the excavation of the avenue of Sphinx, itss at least a mile and half long road (roughly 3 km) lined with over 1300 human headed sphinx that connected Luxor and the Karnak Temple.

When we got to Karnak Temple, we did the usual, waited for Amir to purchase our tickets and then headed in. Amir gave us the rundown of the place, but I was too in awe of the size and beauty of the place to really listen... Again, here we were standing in one of the most beautiful temples I have ever seen (which has been partially restored) amongst the massive pillars that felt a bit like a maze. I wanted so badly, for all the other people to disappear, to be there alone with just my love. No tourist, no locals to haggle us... just for us to exist in this magical spot all on our own. The temple grounds are huge, I mean, acres and acres of grounds to explore... or should I say hectares??

One of the cool things about Karnak, is that it is one of only two temple in Egypt that still have Obelisks standing in their original positions. One of which was recently re-erected. Others had been damaged in natural disasters, others had been removed and taken elsewhere. There are twenty-one total still in existence, seventeen of which are outside of Egypt. Rome has thirteen all taken during the Roman period (it's amazing that they never destroyed them), one in Paris, one in New York, one in London, and one Istanbul. The other two are located in the Heliopolis of Cairo, and one still stands at Luxor Temple.

We spent a good amount of time at Karnak, at least two hours. I loved being able to just observe, take video and photos. ....but eventually it was time to move on to Luxor Temple.

We made our way back into town which was familiar territory from the day before. Our driver dropped us off at at the foot of the Mosque that was built on top of a church that was built on top of part of the temple, and I was really excited to visit. haha. When we entered the grounds we were greeted by towering statues just outside the gateway of the temple. It was something to behold. One of the massive carved figures was covered, concealing the workers who were reassembling a once crumbled statue.

We spent near an hour at Luxor temple taking in the splendor. We were in awe and shock of the stunning frescos that Roman Christians created over the Egytians' beautiful painted plaster walls, and laughing about how Alexander the Great redirected himself into the stories carved on the walls of the Barque Shrine. It was one of the most fascinating temples for these reasons alone. It was hard to imagine, again, how a group of people could come into this place and desecrate its original beauty with their own views. ...but that it is the world we live in, and without those historical acts, the temple of Luxor may not be the intriguing place that it has become. As we left, I stopped to photograph what was the start/end of the avenue of Sphinx. They lead right up to the temple gates, and only contributed to the grandeur.

From Luxor temple, our driver and Amir brought us to our hotel, Pavillon Winter Luxor. We said our final goodbyes and tipped the men who had been our escorts. Upon arrival, we went through security and proceeded to the front desk. From there we were quickly directed to our room. We waited for our bags to arrive, and rested for a bit. We needed our body temperatures to cool down once again. It was quite warm in Luxor, especially for someone like me who was in jeans.

When our hunger began to take control we decided we wanted a break from the city, so we decided to take a stroll through the gardens and grab lunch by the pool. It was fantastic! Exactly what we needed. I got a pizza, which by westerner standards would be deemed fair to good, but I didn't care. At that point in time, it was a GREAT pizza. The late afternoon sun lit things in the most glorious way, and I enjoyed watching the people come and go from the water. Looking back it feels like it was just a dream. I enjoyed this little hotel who neighbored it's bigger historical sister, the Winter Palace Luxor.

Eventually, after enough down time, Brad & I headed back out, but through the Winter Palace Hotel. The man wanted to find some Shisha to smoke and I still wanted a treasure to take home. On our way through we were approached by a family of cats, a momma and her shy babies. It was nice to interact with some sweet critters, as I usually am missing mine by the end of day one. We could not love on them long though since Brad and I are both allergic to kitties.

After getting my animal fix, we hit the streets of Luxor ready to rage! We first stopped at a small cafe and sat on the street corner while Brad ordered the pipe. It wasn't flavored, just plain tobacco, and so he wasn't enjoying it as much as he hoped. It wasn’t long before we moved on. We found ourselves strolling through the central souk where the vendors tried to coax us into their tiny shops full of miscellaneous finds.

I'm not the type of girl to go in every shop. If I know what I want, I just glance in and out of every shop for what I am looking for, and on occasion, I get lucky. This night, I was once again looking for a bluish-green Canopic Jars (I mentioned them in the last post), but it had to have the right head. We went into one shop filled with the jars, but there were no bluish green ones. The shop owner ended up running up and down the street looking in the other shops for one for me, but it was the wrong color. While the shop owner was out, Brad did find a tiny perfume jar that was in the color I wanted. It was a beautiful shade of teal, engraved with hieroglyphics, and had a really cool wooden dropper stick with a beetle carved on the top. Brad didn't even ask me if I wanted it, he just negotiated for it. For $3 Brad got me a sweet gift that now sits on my bedside table. (...and yes, Brad getting me a gift is a big deal... even if it was only $3. I always buy my own gifts...)

Out of luck, we decided to grab dinner and a proper Shisha. We settled on Chez Omar's, a wonderfully decorated large patio where they played great music, and we were able to sit in peace and enjoy each other. We had a great time making videos of us smoking the fruit flavored tobacco, and we really enjoyed the food too. There was just one problem. Chez Omar... at least, I assume he was Chez Omar. Chez kind of took advantage of us with the bill. Chez kept bringing me fresh fruit juices "on the house", but they were all on the bill. There were a couple other issues with it too... but at this point, we were so over the nonsense, that we just paid it and left.. We figure that in the grand scheme of things, it was only a few dollars. ...normally, we wouldn't let this happen because it isn't good for anyone, but we were fried. Egypt was really wearing us down.

After dinner, we were beat and our lungs were exhausted from all the smoke. Despite our unwarranted fun, we decided to call it a night and walked back to our hotel.

The next morning we headed down to enjoy breakfast. The Pavillion Winter hotel had a great breakfast, not the best we had, but far better than what was on our river cruise. Once again, I found myself loading up my plate with pomegranate seeds, and cheeses. I was happy, blissfully happy.

We headed back to our room and got packed up. This was our last day in Luxor, and I can't say that I was entirely disappointed. I was ready to escape Egypt with less than 48 hours to go. ...but despite having our bags packed, we still had time to kill. So we did what we always do, we just walked. We wandered the hotel gardens, the hotel, and wandered around Luxor... We felt like we were leaving satisfied.

We spent some of our final moments at a cafe just across from Luxor Temple. We went up to the covered roof top, and ordered some lunch to share. Chicken & Rice, a tahini dip and flat bread. It was, as usual, really good. We spent over an hour just relaxing in the heat while admiring the view of the Valley of the Kings in the far distance, and watching the locals down below interact. I was surprised to see one man was giving horseback rides in the square.

We headed back to the hotel where we wandered into one of the souvenir shops, again. They had Canopic jars - not exactly like what I wanted... but very close. Brad did some tough negotiating to get the man's price down, and finally I had my treasure. I could leave Egypt a happy woman.

We wandered even more. We went into an antique store with some truly gorgeous pieces with breathtaking and heart stopping price tags. Then, we found our way into the old bookstore. The oldest bookstore in all of Egypt, I believe. My favorite part of this, was being able to see all the old black and white photographic prints that had been taken by the bookstore's founder. They were inspiring to say the least. There is something about black & white photographs of Egypt that just feel so right. I didn't buy any, even though I wanted to. I left the shop, as I had found it.

Finally, Brad and I headed back to the hotel lobby to collect our bags, and headed out to the main street to grab a cab. We had to walk a little ways again as part of Brad’s negotiating tactic, but it didn't seem to be working so we just took the best deal we could get and headed to the airport.

...to be continued...

ISSUE 49: Luxor, Egypt 2018