Made it to Luxor

Aswan, Abu Simbel, Felucca 084
Originally uploaded by susiebarber

Sorry, but I need to keep this brief. My hotel does not have internet access and this internet cafe does not have AC and it's hot out.

Yesterday was a bit disappointing. We only sailed about 3 hours total all day. Our captain thought it was better to sit on shore and hang out with his buddies, so myself and my French friends were a bit disappointed. We were on the Nile though and had a very relaxing day with a lot of napping and reading. We didn't swim in the Nile though -- both of our guide books warned against it.

After going ashore, we were picked up and driven to Kom Ombo and Edfu to see their temples. Edfu was definitely the best -- it's so well preserved and pretty large. Like others that I've seen, the Christians tried scratching out the faces and bodies of many of the gods and pharohs on the walls. And in some rooms, the ceilings were completely black. This was from cooking. Apparently, Christians used to hide out here from the Romans and they did quite a bit of cooking in the temple. There's even some escape routes for them.

Kom Ombo was interesting in that there was a room with 3 crocodile mummies. Unfortunately, we couldn't take photos inside.

Afterwards, we rode in a minibus up to Luxor. Our driver told us that the AC was out, so we were sweltering. And he drove like a lunatic. I was in the second row and saw the odometer hit 110 kpm on more than one occasion. The speed limit was only 90 kpm. Do the math on that one. By some small miracle, we did safely arrive at our respective hotels. Tomorrow, I leave at 7:30 for the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens. I have the whole day there with a private guide. I'll do my best to post photos tomorrow night, but I may be wiped out. It could be the next morning. By the way, I'm 9 hours head of you west coasters.