Luxor

After being on vacation I thought it was a good idea to go on vacation. As soon as I got back to Alex I travelled to Luxor with Chiara and Salma from my school. We went by sleeper train, which I was childishly excited about, as I'd never done it before, I had only read about it in books or seen it in films. It was actually really comfortable, but I was too excited to sleep much - on the way back, on the other hand, I slept like a log.

There are few other places in the world which are filled with so much history as Luxor. It was the centre of Pharaonic Egypt for most of the time between 2000 and 1000 BC, and many pharaohs built extravagant tombs and temples here.

The first historic site we visited was the fabled Valley of the Kings on the West Bank of Luxor, where countless pharaohs chose to build secret tombs in the mountains. We entered a few of these tombs, and the detail of the elaborate decorations was astonishing. In some tombs the colours were very well preserved; it was beautiful. One interesting thing we noted was that the ancient Egyptians seem to have drawn stars the way we do, with five points, even though there is no logical reason a star should be drawn that way. Does this mean that the symbol for a star has been passed down to us from the age of the pharaohs? Cameras are not allowed in the Valley of the Kings, so I have no pictures.

We then visited the almost 3500-year-old Memorial Temple of Hatshepsut, the pharaoh who was the only woman to be buried in Valley of the Kings.

Chiara, me and Salma in front of Hatshepsut's Temple

Thereafter we went to Medinat Habu, the memorial temple of Pharaoh Ramses III, who lived about 3000 years ago. The temple is cheerfully decorated with reliefs showing the pharaoh slaying his enemies.

The last monument we saw on the West Bank was the Colossi of Memnon, two enormous statues which used to be part of another memorial temple. We visited all these monuments as part of a small group, and got to know some of the others pretty well. Below is one of our fellow travellers in front of the Colossi of Memnon.

Whereas the West Bank was the side of the dead in pharaonic times, and therefore dedicated to tombs and memorial temples, the East Bank was the side of the living, and the temples here were built for the different gods. Luxor Temple is about 3000 years old, and was mainly a temple for Amun, the god of Luxor. There had long been a town around the temple, but in medieval times people even started moving into it, and as you can see below a mosque was built inside the old temple.

The other main temple on the East Bank is Karnak Temple, also built for Amun. Each year there was a procession where a statue of Amun was brought from Karnak to Luxor Temple.

Hieroglyphs

We also went on a day trip to the nearby temples of Abydos and Dendara. The temple in Abydos was built by pharaoh Seti I and his son Ramses II about 3200 years ago, and was dedicated to six of the most important gods. It is very well-preserved and contains many beautiful and detailed reliefs, and this was definitely my favourite temple of our Luxor trip. Unfortunately it was too dark inside for my camera to take any good pictures.

The temple in Dendara is much more recent. It was built just a few hundred years BC, on top of an older temple, which has not been excavated. This temple was for the worship of Hathor, the goddess of love, who was normally represented as a cow or as a woman with cow's horns. Most of the temple is still intact, and there is a lot to explore, as there are kiosks built for the gods on the roof, and there are several crypts underneath the temple floor, where secret treasures were held.

 

Columns decorated with the head of Hathor

Us and our fellow travellers in Dendara Temple

On our trip to Luxor we saw great contrasts: from the old, serene monuments to the modern-day hustle and bustle and hassle which surrounds them, and from the slow pace of the Nile and the villages of the West Bank to the frantic tourist touts on the East Bank. We went on several felucca trips on the Nile, which was very peaceful and relaxing, the only problem being that it was actually pretty cold. Once we went on a felucca trip to Banana Island, a very fertile and green island where bananas (who could have guessed!) among other things are grown. That was another stark contrast: the lush agricultural landscape on either side of and on the islands in the Nile, and the arid desert surrounding it.

Felucca on the Nile

Us on Banana Island

Salma chewing on freshly cut sugarcane

Chiara on the felucca

I think the impression that really will stick with us from Luxor is the hospitality we were met with by some of its people. The guys who sailed the felucca took us to their village on the West Bank and showed us around, and we were once invited to their uncle’s house, another time we ate dinner with their family. It astonished us how we were welcomed into their family even though they didn’t know us, and their generosity was boundless. They cooked us an elaborate meal, and when Salma asked where she could buy clay pots similar to the ones they used for cooking, they insisted on giving her some. For the most part of the night, we were all huddled around the fire talking, and it was very atmospheric. They had animals in the courtyard, which they took us to see: rabbits, chickens and turkeys, and also a goat, a donkey and a buffalo. The visit to their house was an experience I think we would have been hard pressed to come by in Europe. We very much appreciated being invited into the home of a normal family: getting to know some locals and getting a glimpse of their life really gave us a different impression of Luxor than we would have had if we had only experienced the stressful hassle around the tourist sites. When we left the home of the family, I forgot my scarf, and our new friends insisted on lending me their jackets and scarves, so I wouldn’t be cold until I got my scarf back the next day. We hardly knew how to handle all the kindness.

Huddled around the fire

I should have posted this a week ago, but school happened. I originally intended to blog every week, but due to how long it takes me to write each post, especially as the speed of my internet can’t quite match that of an elderly snail, I see that this is maybe a bit ambitious. I will try to at least blog every two weeks. Forgive me.