The Second Day: The Temple of Luxor

The Dash Seven of Petroleum Air Services that was supposed to take workers to an oil field, but instead flew us to Luxor. Note the guard standing under the wing.
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We were taken to the airport in the morning for our flight to Luxor for the second day of our tour. It looked kind of foggy but we are Canadian and are used to fog and other kinds of weather, so we didn't think too much of it. We waited in the airport -- and waited. And waited. Other passengers were there, and international flights were going out. After a while some oil rig workers who were waiting to fly out left the terminal, pretty noisily and belligerently we thought, and got on a bus to go to their drilling site in the Sinai. Then we learned that our group had been put on their plane, so the feeling we had that they were angry at us was confirmed. Later we learned that the "fog" was an early sandstorm, very unusual for that month of the year. A group  from Germany that went to see the pyramids the day after us couldn't see a thing. No pyramids. They were to fly out to join our cruise but sat at the airport all the next day, missed the sailing and joined us later.

The front of the temple at Luxor with statues of Rameses II.
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We flew to Luxor later than scheduled, but we did get there on a plane owned by Petroleum Air Services, using an aircraft designed and built in Canada. We left our luggage on the M.V. Miriam at Luxor, had  lunch on the boat, and went to the Luxor Temple towards dusk. The temple was made of very dark stone that looked like concrete before it cures and turns from dark beige to white. The pillars and statues were immense and the pictures will show that there was lots to see, but the temple really is in a ruined state, destroyed by various conquerors and local governments mining stone.

The "fog" was an early sandstorm.