Nov 01 – Cruising the Nile, Karnak and Luxor

This morning we flew to Luxor where we had a short drive through the local town.  The drive took us along some canals. 

We headed to a dock on the Nile river…

where we boarded the Oberoi Zahra, our home for the next few days.  It is a lovely boat.  

And we have found that there are tons of cruise boats on this section of the Nile.  Some look like they are due for the scrap heap but they sail none-the-less.

Some derelict looking boats docked near us. 

Our first site to visit today was the Great Karnak Temple.  Karnak is the largest temple complex in the world and words cannot describe it.  And, it is in the Luxor open-air museum, considered by some to be the largest in the world.  

Model of the Karnak complex

The walkway to the entrance was lined with sphinxes with rams heads...

and the entrance (first Pylon) was very imposing…the walls are huge.

Just inside the entrance was a large courtyard…

and the adjacent Temple of Ramesses III.

From there we entered probably the most imposing feature of the site, the Great Hypostyle Courtyard, with countless numbers of massive columns. 

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More Great Hypostyle Courtyard
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Video of Great Hypostyle Courtyard
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There were also a couple of obelisks, one for Queen Hatshepsut.

There was also a Sacred Lake.  According to Khalid the water level of the lake always stays the same…regardless of the ground water level in the area or any rains (which are very rare).  (Could find nothing to confirm this.  Sometimes I like to confirm claims made by guides as they can often be quite creative in their stories.)

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More Karnak
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We were back at the boat for lunch.  The entire group decided to eat on the top deck of the boat.  The views were nice and the gentle breezes were lovely.  Life is good.

In the late afternoon we headed to Luxor.  The sun was setting when we arrived, so we had a gentle sunset. 

The complex was lit, giving it a magical and mysterious feel. 

Note the obelisk on the left front of the entrance.  The matching obelisk is now sitting at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, a gifted to France by Muhammad Ali Pasha, ruler of Ottoman Egypt.  The French reciprocated by gifting Egypt with the clock we saw at the Muhammad Ali Mosque we saw in Cairo (the clock has rarely worked). 

The temple was built around 1400 BC. The temple is dedicated to the rejuvenation of kingship and it is believed that many Egyptian kings were crowned here (in reality or conceptually). 

There was a large courtyard surrounded by columns.

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Video of courtyard
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Outside the temple was a long walkway lined with sphinxes. 

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More Luxor
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The boat was providing a happy hour prior to dinner so we thought we would go down and mingle.  There was only one other couple there so we joined them.  They are from Scottsdale, AZ, Matt and Joan. 

The dining room has a separate table set up for our little group of eight.  There is another group tour (Tauck) with 38 guests.  Other than those, us and the couple we met we think we are the entire boat contingent of guests.