Look! Old stuff.

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We worked some serious magic thanks to our Indian training and our good looks (Egyptians love us!)  and scored a 3 day/2 night Nile cruise on a 4 star boat for only $150 total!  What's up?!!!!!!!  It, of course, included all of our meals for 3 days and a super fun, deluxe room with a living area with a couch and tv and fridge.  We even had a window that opened and we could feel the Nile spray.  We really really enjoyed the Nile cruise on the "Nile Splendor" it  was absolutely a highlight of the trip.  We made a friend named Joyce from China who studies in S. Africa and we caused quite a ruckus together on the ship.

carrie in our cabin and the Nile out our window
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On the way to Luxor we stopped at Kom Ombo to see a really fantastic temple and then in Edfu to quickly see another temple (we overslept and only had 20 minutes at that temple..oops).  We made it to Luxor and docked for the second night so we got to go to the Luxor museum.  What a beautiful museum!  They really give each piece its proper display.  There is a traffic pattern too so you don't miss anything.  Loved it.

The next morning we checked into the Nefertiti hotel (not so glamorous and super duper freezing).  We hired a taxi for the next three days.  The first day he took us to Karnak temple and we explored for several hours.  Its huge and amazing as with all the things we have seen here.  When we came back to the hotel there was a terrible atrocity in front of our hotel.  Being the first day of Eid they slaughter animals all over the city to prepare for the next days feast.  Well our hotel bought a huge cow and had it slaughtered right at the front door.  They bled it and then they systematically butchered it.  The street flowed with blood (no exageration here) you had to walk through the blood to get to the hotel.  I did not look.  It was hideous and smelly and terrible.

Karnak Temple...to scale
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That afternoon, we decided to take a felucca ride down the Nile.  Felucca's are an ancient traditional Egyptian sailboat that moves slower than a turtle.  We showed up and saw our boat was called the "bob marley" and there was a man older than Jesus smoking out of a bong on the boat...guess what?  He was our captain!  He and his 14 year old grandson.  It was an interesting trip.  Feluccas are wonderfully relaxing and we sailed to 'banana island'  aptly named since it was a big banana tree forest.  We ate banana's and oranges with our 14 year old captain and then boarded again to sail back.  Old man marley made us tea with Nile water...that's right we drank Nile water and survived!!!!!!!!  We are so tough.  We watched the sunset and then they paddled back to the dock since the boat was moving so slow and it was getting dark.  Carrie got to steer the boat at this point...just call her Captain Carrie!

Karnak Temple
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The next day, New Years Eve, we got up before dawn and took a hot air balloon ride over the west bank of the Nile!  Its a new company so we got a great deal and we didn't even die...we even got a free T-shirt and a certificate proving we did it!  The balloon ride was a first for both of us and it was awesome.  We flew over some villages and temples and the valley of the queens and we could see the desert and the Nile and it was neat.  We met up with our taxi driver and headed to the Valley of the Kings.  AWESOME!!!!  Your ticket gets you into 3 tombs and then we paid extra to see King Tut...the boy wonder.  The tombs were indescribable!  The colors of the paintings and reliefs were perfect.  So much of the artwork inside is completely preserved still.  Its all much bigger than we ever imagined.  The tombs are super hot and stuffy and the lower you go the worse it gets...can't imagine it in the summer time...YIKES.

old man marley
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We headed to Hapshetsut temple.  Hapshetsut rocked!  She was a queen then her husband died and she was all, "I am king now...oh and a god" so she started dressing like a man and everyone worshipped her as god and king.  HOW AWESOME!  It was a beautiful temple...site of a mass slaughtering of westerners a few years ago by Islamic militants...it just re-opened with lots and lots of heavily armed police.  Glad we saw it because we really enjoyed it.  We had dinner, bought miss Carrie a cane since hers is lost in her bag somewhere in the world and had a lovely conversation and tea with the shop owner and his friends.  We declined the belly dancing invitation (everyone is so friendly they all invite you places and to eat with them here, they never see Americans and so they love to talk to us about America and why our foreign policies suck and what Americans think of it all) and were passed out by 9pm...Happy New Year!

our balloon shadow over valley of the queens
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On a side note: tensions are somewhat elevated here since Saddam's execution.  Everyone is outraged that his execution date was set for the first day of Eid.  It is a sacred day and the symbolism was not lost on them...slaughter of the animals...slaughter of Saddam.  Everyone blames the US government because really Iraq's government is seen as a puppet right now and Bush was all "yee haw" about it.  The timing of it, was seen here, as disrespectful and it will definitely hamper progress in the Middle East.

Hapshetsut Temple
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Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!  We started 2007 with an exploration of the Valley of the Queens.  There were four really amazing tombs and no one else in the whole valley so we were free to enjoy them at our leisure.  The other tombs were big open really deep pits that you could look down but there wasn't anything to see but some garbage and human excrement (the guards apparently use them as toilets).  They should really do abseiling tours into the tombs.

We headed to the Ramesseum where they are currently doing a seriously huge excavation and study of the area.  There were hundreds of people working on the dig.  The temple itself was beautiful but more broke down than any of the others we have visited.

heiroglyphs at habu temple
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We ended at the Habu Temple.  Another beautiful temple filled with strangly deeply carved heiroglyphs.  It was imposing and a lot of the coloring on the reliefs was still visible.  Very exciting.

Now, it's now and we are typing.  Tonight we take the midnight train to Georgia...I mean Cairo.  We finally get to see the pyramids at Giza!  Stay tuned.