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October 28, 2018 Luxor

Yet another early morning.  This morning we had a 5AM pickup because we had a 3 hour drive to Abydos.  Luckily Rick is feeling much better after his marathon sleep.

The drive to Abydos was crazy.  Our driver is pretty aggressive (although not as bad as some places we have been).  There are lines in the road which they seem to just consider recommendations.  Our driver often moved into the oncoming traffic lane in order to pass someone.  Everyone is constantly honking to let other drivers know where they are.  Luckily we arrived in Abydos in one piece.

Abydos is home to the mortuary temple of Seti I. Abydos has a special place in the sacred landscape of ancient Egypt, as it was believed to be the place where Osiris was buried.  The temple is dedicated to Osiris, Isis (Osiris’ wife), and Horace (Osiris’ son).  It still has some of the original color.  Here are some pictures.

Dendera was our next stop, about half way back to Luxor. It contains the Dendera Temple complex, one of the best-preserved temple sites from ancient Upper Egypt.

We were escorted by police part of the way to Dendera.  I guess they do this to provide protection for the tourists, although no one would say it seemed unsafe for us. At one point there was police truck in front of us with to police officersoldiers sitting in the back with guns. The supervisor must have told them to put their helmets on.  One of the soldiers put his helmet on backwards.  We were all looking at him laughing and I spun my finger around to tell him to turn it around.  Eventually he figured out the problem and rotated the helmet 180 degrees but he did not fasten the strip under his chin.  He looked like a bobble head doll.  After a few minutes of wearing it like that he tried to fasten the strip behind his head.  Eventually he realized that wasn’t going to work and got it fastened under his chin.  He was smiling the whole time and watching us laugh at him.  Rick said he hoped he didn’t needto shot his gun.  🤪

Dendera temple complex was built around 350 BC in the Greco style.  It honors Hathor, goddess of beauty, love, joy and motherhood.  Hathor was often depicted as a cow, symbolizing her maternal and celestial aspects, although her most common form was a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk.  In the pictures below she is depicted with “cow ears” on the top of the columns.  Most of the figures in reliefs were faced by people who later lived in the temple.  (It seems that people lived in temples during the Coptic and Islamic periods.)

We returned to Luxor arriving back around 3.  We ate a late lunch at the same restaurant that we ate in on the first day in Luxor.  Then we said goodbye to Ahmed.

We relaxed for the rest of the day by the pool.

 

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October 27, 2018 – Luxor

We were picked up for our balloon ride at 3:50 this morning.  We collected up some other people and then headed to the river.  We got on one of the boats, had some breakfast and filled out paperwork.  There we met some very nice people from the Maldives and spoke with them about sailing around their homeland someday. They were very encouraging and eventually asked us to visit them if we ever made it there.

Once the Luxor airport tower declared the weather conditions satisfactory we went across the river and were loaded into vans for transport to the balloon launching area.  They were blowing up the balloons when we got there.  We were in a large basket with a capacity of 32.  We only had 26 so there was a little extra room for all.  The balloon ride was amazing.  It was beautiful to watch the sun rise on the West Bank.  The ride was calm, stable and we were never concerned.  We couldn’t take our cameras because the army has several installations close to theValley of the Kings and thus doesn’t want people taking high res photos. We were limited to our cell phone cameras.  We came down in a farming area and the crew had to pull us away from the active fields so that we wouldn’t damage the farmers crops.  Here are some pictures.

After we landed we stopped at a small restaurant to wait for our guide to pick us up.  We sat with our new Maldivian friends and had a coffee.  After about 1/2 hour Ahmed the Great picked us up and off we went to Valley of the Kings, where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, rock cut tombs were excavated for the Pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom (the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt).

With the 2005 discovery of a new chamber and the 2008 discovery of two further tomb entrances, the valley is known to contain 63 tombs and chambers (ranging in size from a simple pit to a complex tomb with over 120 chambers). It was the principal burial place of the major royal figures of the Egyptian New Kingdom, as well as a number of privileged nobles. The royal tombs are decorated with scenes from Egyptian mythology and give clues as to the beliefs and funerary rituals of the period. Almost all of the tombs seem to have been opened and robbed in antiquity, but they still give an idea of the opulence and power of the Pharaohs.  Here are a couple of pictures of the valley including people excavating.

Our tickets allowed us to go into 3 tombs.  Based on Ahmed’s recommendation we went into Ramesses IV, Ramesses II, Merenptah and Tutankhamen (we had paid extra for King Tut).  Each one was different but they were all amazing.  I found it very overwhelming to think about being inside a tomb which was almost 4,000 years old and a place that optimizes the royal families of ancient Eygpt.  Ahmed did a great job of explaining the process of entombing the pharoahs, their beliefs about the after life and what the images represent.  We didn’t take pictures but here are some that I found on the internet.

After Valley of the Kings we had some time to kill so we went to an alabaster showroom.  They explained how they shape the stone and then they took us into a showroom.  We liked a candle votive and were just curious about how much it would cost.  We didn’t want to buy it, but were just wondering.  Their original price was $80 but we ended up buying it for $20.

Next stop: Queen Hatshepsut mortuary temple. Queen Hatshepsut came to the throne of Egypt in 1478 BC and was the second confirmed female pharaoh.  According to Ahmed she usurped power from her step son.  Here are some pictures

Rick has been fighting a cold for last couple of days and between that and lack of sleep, he was feeling pretty bad by this time.  We were supposed to go to lunch, but he just wanted to go back to the hotel where he took a short nap and then we had lunch.  After lunch he slept for most of the rest of the day while I worked on the blog.

I know it’s just the beginning of the trip but it’s hard to image we are going to have another day as wonderful as this.  Words can’t describe it.

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October 26, 2018 – Luxor

We were up very early to catch a 7:30 flight to Luxor. Our guide, Mustafa, picked us up at 4:30am.  There’s no traffic at 4:30 so the trip that took over an hour the evening before took us 20 minutes this morning.  We had time at the airport to get coffee and eat the box breakfasts provided by the hotel.  

The short one hour flight was uneventful and we were met at Luxor airport by our local tour leader, Ahmed, and our driver.  We arrived at our hotel by 9:30.  We were scheduled for lunch at 1 and our tour was scheduled to start at 2 so we had a couple of hours to get settled.  Our hotel is on the east shore of the Nile.  It has a beautiful pool area overlooking the Nile and the West Bank, where the Valley of the Kings is visable in the distance.  Here are some pictures of the hotel, the West Bank, and the Nile.

Ahmed picked us up at the hotel and took us to a local restaurant, El Hussein, for lunch.   The food was great and we really enjoyed getting to know Ahmed.  He graduated from college in June with a degree in English and started working for our travel company in August.  He lives in Cairo but is stationed Luxor for the next three months.  After lunch we came back to the hotel where we meet our tour guide, again named Ahmed (we called him Ahmed the Great, ATG, to differentiate between the two).  ATG was a high school teacher who taught Egyptian history for many years before becoming a tour guide.  He has a great sense of humor.  Here he is acting like a pharaoh and walking like an Egyptian.

 

Luxor, also called Thebes by the Greeks, was the Egyptian capital during the 16th–11th centuries B.C.  Our first stop was Karnak Temple.  The temple was started around 2055 BC, augmented over the next 500 years and used for about 2100 years.  It is the second largest temple complex in the world (Angkor Wat is the largest).  The temple is dedicated to Amun, his wife, Mut, and his son, the moon god, Khonsu.  Here are a couple of renderings I found on the internet of what it might have looked like in its prime.

Here are some pictures of what it looks like today.

From Karnak we went to Luxor Temple.  An avenue of sphinxes runs the entire 3 kilometers between Karnak and Luxor temples connect the two sites. This avenue is currently under excavation.

Amenhotep III, one of the great builders of ancient Egypt, started constructingthe temple during his New Kingdom reign, which lasted from 1390 to 1352 BC.  Ramesses II also make significant contribution to the temple.  ATG gave us a lot of information on the statues and hieroglyphs.

It was getting dark while we were there so I couldn’t get as many pictures as I would have liked.  Here are a few:

Luckily we had a big lunch because that evening we went to the Karnak Temple sound and light show.  Rick is interested in photographing the various temples at night.  The show was a little cheesy but here are a couple of his pictures.

I was so tired because we had gotten up at 3:30 that I fell asleep at the end of the show. We got back to the hotel and immediately went to bed because we have to get up very early for a hot air sunrise balloon ride.

 

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October 25, 2018 – Cairo

Happy 12th birthday Josh!  I can’t believe you are 12.

Not much to report.  The flights to Frankfurt and Cairo were uneventful and largely sleepless.  We were met in Cairo by our tour company who whisked us through immigration.  We drove for about a hour, through rush hour traffic, to our hotel.  We are staying at the Sheraton which is a very nice hotel overlooking the Nile.  After getting settled in our room we explored the hotel a little.  The area around the hotel didn’t look great and our guide, Mustafa, told us that we would be approached by aggressive vendors so we decided to eat at the Egyptian restaurant in the hotel.  Rick got hummus, roasted beet salad, and tameeya.  I had chicken shawarma.  Everything was great.  After dinner we fell into bed to get soon very needed sleep in preparation for an early 4:30 AM departure for Luxor.

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Overall thoughts about our Africa trip

Just some thoughts about our trip.  First of all I thought the itinerary was perfect except I would have liked another day in Cape Town to really explore Stellenbosch.  With that exception, we had just enough time in each location.  I didn’t feel rush and I didn’t feel like we had too much time.  All the people we met were warm and friendly, however I didn’t feel safe at night in the cities of South Africa. Our guides were extremely knowledgeable.  Of course the animal sightings were amazing.  We saw every animal you would expect to see in Africa.  We heard about poaching which is a very real threat that needs better management locally and globally to reduce/eliminate both the supply and the demand sides of the problem.

As I mentioned early I think Iguazu Falls were much more impressive than Victoria Falls but that could be because we were there when it was drier.

The most importantly I felt that Southern Africa has a long road ahead of them to prosperity.  South Africa was really ravaged by Apartheid.  It will take a long time to undo the damage that was done. I could say a similar thing about Zimbabwe which endured 37 years of mismanagement by Robert Mugabe and today suffers from 90% unemployment.   In summary I am left with the belief that we need to treat people fairly and justly all the time because it takes a long journey to recover from oppression.

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Rick’s best pictures from Africa

Rick took his good camera and capture some really amazing images.  He has been using Lightroom to clean them up.  Here is a sampling of his best pictures.

 

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September 8, 2018

We said good bye to Patty, Tim, Kay, and Mike after breakfast.  They were spending the morning in town and then Rodney was taking them to the airport to catch a flight to Jo’berg and then home.  We were flying from Cape Town to Amsterdam and then home.  Our flight didn’t leave until 11 that night so we had the whole day.  

That morning we went to the airport to pick up a car.  We planned to go to Darling which was supposed to have beautiful wild flowers.  Rodney had given us a route and told us to stay out of the townships.  Unfortunately we missed a turn and ended up in a township but luckily we didn’t have any problems.  We arrived in Darling and were underwhelmed by the flowers.  Here are some pictures.  

We decided to head back into town for lunch.  Fortified by Indian food for lunch we headed south to a Cheetah reserve.  Cheetahs are often killed by farmers because they are killing the farmer’s herd.  The reserve’s main purpose is to train dogs to protect herds.  Certain types of dogs will come to view the herd as their family and will fight any predators to the death to protect their family.  Cheetahs are non confrontational so the dog will scare them off.  To date they have placed over 200 dogs.  The reserve keeps cheetahs as ambassadors for the reserve cause.  At the reserve they also had caracal, mongoose, bat eared foxes and serval. 

After getting a tour we were ready for our encounter with cheetah cubs.  The center has three 5 1/2 month cheetah cubs, one female and two males.  Eventually the female will go back to the breeding center and the two males will go to a zoo in Australia.  The cubs were taken from their mother when they were three weeks old.  Since then they have get getting use to human contact.  They were playing and jumping on each other while we were waiting for the encounter.  Three staff members were required, one for each cub just in case something went wrong.  We had to disinfect our hands and shoes before going in.  Once in there one of the cubs was laying down so we knelt down and pet him.  He didn’t seem to mind at all. 

In total we probably spent five minutes in cage with them and it was great.  Afterwards they were feed, eating rare meat from the hands of their handlers. 

All in all a wonderful experience.  

Because it was too early to go to the airport we drove down the coast.  Here are some pictures.  

After sunset we headed to the airport to turn in the car. We had a long 24 hour trip home with very little sleep but that’s ok because we had a great vacation.  Now we are home trying to sort through our pictures and get ready for the next adventure, Egypt and Jordan, in November. 

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September 7, 2018

Happy Birthday to my brother, Jeff!

We started the day by going to Robben Island, the prison that housed Mandala as well as many other political and criminal prisoners.  We took a ferry over to the island.  There we were met by our guide, a man who was in the prison from 1977 until 1982.  He was in high school when he was arrest for attending a Christian school meeting that the government believed was plotting against them.  He was spoke very elegantly. 

He told us about the system of privileges including education that the prison imposed in an effort to manage the prisoners behavior.  One of the privileges was how much you were allowed to communicate with family.  Of course that communication was censored.  Our guide spoke a lot about the prisoners mixed feelings about accepting the privileges.

He showed us the prison cells including Mandala’s cell.  It was a tiny room with a mat for sleeping and a bucket.  We also saw group cells that were horrible overcrowded back when our guide was there. 

Our guide told us about how he felt coming back to be a guide.  It was very difficult initially but he also thought it helped him heal.  He really was inspirational.  

After our tour we got on a bus for a short tour of the island.  We saw the quarry where the prisoners were forced to do hard labor as well as the place that Robert Sobukwe was kept.  On 21 March 1960, Sobukwe led a nationwide protest against the hated Pass Law which required black people to carry a pass book at all times. Sobukwe led a march to the local police station at Orlando, Soweto, in order to openly defy the laws. In a similar protest on the same day in Sharpeville, police opened fire on a crowd, killing 69 in the Sharpeville Massacre.  His ideas were consisted so dangerous that he was isolated from the rest of the prisoners and died before he could a South Africa free from apartheid.  

I found the visit to Robben Island very emotional, troubling, and inspirational in the way some are able to forgive their captors.

We took the ferry back and stopped at a grocery store on the way back to the van in order to pick up some sandwiches.  That afternoon we were scheduled to do a tour of Stellenbosch. In Stellenbosch we passed acre after acre of grape plants.  We went to two wineries.  At the first winery we tasted pinotage which no one liked.  The second one was better but we were not tempted to buy any wine.  

We drove through the town of Stellenbosch which has a very large university and some quaint Dutch homes.  We ended with a stop at a chocolate shop for Belgian chocolate after which Rodney took us back to the hotel.  Rick and I said good bye to Rodney.  He is a great guide who share a lot of knowledge and his view on many aspects of South African and its history.  

That evening we went out to a steak place for dinner.  

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September 6, 2018

Today we had a peninsula tour with Rodney.  We down the coast which was beautiful. Here are some pictures.

We arrived the Cape of Good Hope before the tour buses and took pictures there. 

Then we drove to Cape Point and walked around there.  The views from Cape Point were gorgeous. 

Rick spotted a caracal, a rare cat whose back legs are longer than its front legs which allows it to jump and catch birds in the air.  Rodney said he had never seen one there.  Unfortunately we didn’t get a picture.  

From there we went to see the penguin colony in Simon’s town, home to a colony of African penguins.  They are the only penguin that breed in Africa.  We saw several with babies.  Here are some pictures.

We drove on to Kalk where we got fish at Lucky’s fish and chips.  I had a salad. Then we visit Muizenberg’s beaches. 

We ended our day with a visit to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.  These gardens were established by John Cecil Rhodes.  It poured as we walked through the gardens but eventually the sun came out.  Patty was very excited to see all the proteas, an unusual type of flower.  Here are some pictures.  

After the Gardens we headed back to town and were dropped off at the hotel.  We went out for pizza and pasta that night.  Dinner was followed by Mexican train.