This morning’s visit to Edfu was interesting. It is the most preserved temple in Egypt and daily they are finding more ruins buried under existing buildings. The government has had to move people out of those buildings so they can be demolished and continue the digging. I can’t imagine how disruptive this must be for the residents.
Peter, our guide, was born and raised in Edfu. He knows his stuff, that’s for sure. The carvings are mainly dedicated to King Horas, son of Isis and Osiris. The heiroglyphics are everywhere and explain about the fight for good and evil in those times.
At 5:30 AM, we took a horse-drawn carriage through the town to get to the site, which was not too far away. Our driver, Mohammed (who would have guessed), was happy to have us but I am not so sure how happy his horse was. We arrived at the parking lot of carriages and saw the splendor of Edfu. I will shed some light about the state of living in Egypt by the time we leave this country, but suffice it to say that how people live here (and Edfu is a town of over 400,000 – not small) is appalling. India, with its billions of people, seems to be cleaner (and that is saying a lot), less chaotic, and more organized that what we have experienced in Egypt. More about this later…
We finished seeing the temple and then returned to the boat for breakfast. Other than eggs, the offerings were a sea of carbs (pun intended). Jim decided to have some laundry done and dropped a bag of clothes at the reception desk. The bag was full and the cost was about $2 USD. When we went to our room, we both crashed and took a nice nap.
In the afternoon, we went to Karnak and Luxor Temple. Both were amazing, filled with heiroglyphics and many of the same stories of past kings that we will see in many of the temples during this visit. The Karnak Temple Complex consists of a number of temples, chapels and other buildings in the form of a village.. It is for this reason that the Arabian name Karnak means fortified village.
In the middle of modern Luxor is the Luxor Temple, called the world’s largest outdoor museum. It is among the most beautiful of the temples, located right on the east bank of the Nile.
When we returned, we went to the Lounge/Bar where tea and coffee are served with cookies and cake at 4:00 daily. It is also one of two places where there is WiFi available. I was able to update our activities. Eventually, I will add the pictures, hopefully the day after tomorrow when we depart from the boat and head to Hurghada for a few days at the beach. More about that later.
After dinner, there was music and drums going throughout the boat. We weren’t sure about what was being celebrated but we fell asleep pretty quickly.