The alarm went off at 5am butwe managed to ignore it until 5.30 when we rolled our of bed and out the door to get to the mighty Karnak Temple before the tourist hordes descended upin it. Fortified, or not, by some chocolate filled biscuits we made it to Karnak around 6.30 to find that we almost had the place to ourselves.
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| From 2 Luxor |
The morning air was so fresh, well fresh in comparison to the afternoon and evening air. We missed sunrise but it was still low in the sky when we arrived at the temple and the warm light was soft on the huge stone structures. It is the biggest religious monument ever built and covers enough ground to fit in ten cathedrals, it is impressive as it sounds. Unless you are ancient Egyptian histopry buff and get kicks from which Pharoh did what, it's unlikely that you'll know what this place is; an enormous temple to Amun (sun god) built and added to by generations of Pharohs, it is enormous. My favourite place was the Great Hypostyle Mall, which has 134 massive columns representing papyrus flowers all etched with pictures. It impossible to describe the feeling being amoung them, they were so grand and serene, warm peach in the soft light, it was amazing - better than the Pyrmaids at Giza and withot the crowds as well! We walked around for a good hour and a half the air getting slowly warmer with the rising sun. By 8.30 it was really hot in the sun but bearable in the shade, we had seen most of what around, able to touch things (which we didn't trying to be responsible tourists) and go inside little chambers with the paint still intact on the engravings. It was a great start to the day.
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| From 2 Luxor |
We headed back to the hotel, walking along the Nile. I still couldn't believe that we were actually seeing the Nile, the second longest river in the world with links to such amazing history, thinking about it is just mindblowing. The walk back even though early in the morning, had me working up a sweat – I just couldn't believe how hot is was before 9am! We used the internet, Djalma dispatching me to attend to our growing washing pile – which I did but quite resentfully! Using the washing machine was almost as energy sapping as washing clothes by hand. The 'washing machine' was a stout open topped cylinder with a small fan to propel the clothes round in circles. It had to be filled by hand from pans of lukewarm water from an intermittently working tap and drained from a small piece of hose which had to be held up to keep the water in. How it worked was not apparent at first so I left the rooftop in the baking sun to go to recpetion to ask for help (five floors down) which came, much later. Once the clothes got going sprinkled with washing powder it was simply a game of waiting, wilting in the heat, before picking out the clothes, wringing them, rinsing them under fresh water, wringing again and then hanging them on the line. A fairly drawn out process, during which Djalma was collected to go and pay for some of the cruise he tried to book and pay for the other day. Finished I put my feet up and slept till he got back and then we both slept.
We left much later after getting some falafel from the place we had originally sent someone else to get our food, this time Djalma went in and got the locals price. We went together before and Djalma had asked for the normal price then as well, there was a lot of laughter when they realised that he knew he was being charged 2-3 times more than the normal price and a local ended up taking our money and buying our falafel pockets for us (the cashier would ask too many questions). D is now welcomed there and providing the owner isn't around, gets the local price, what a guy!
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| From 2 Luxor |
We sat and a game, I can't remember which one before heading down to a small restaurant on the Nile and getting some big beers while watching the sun set and Brazil absolutely thrash Chile (3-0!) before walking back feling decidely tipsy from the amount of beer. We flopped on the bed ready to sleep like babies only for the electricity to cut out and the air-conditioning and the ceiling fan to die.
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