Sun Set Hotel Luxor

Last day on board boat but a busy day at Karnak & Luxor temples which
were fabulous. Elia did his usual excellent job at enlightning us
about them. He has done an excellent job this week and I feel that
I've learnt more about ancient Egyptian history this past week than
the last 40 years.

It's been a ...

... reached the ferry we were approached by someone offering a mini van for the whole day for 250LE. "No, we want to get to the other side by ferry we will decide on the other side."
"OK 200LE."
"No, we will wait thank you."
"Air conditioned, comfortable."
"No, it's to much."
Suddenly the price dropped to 100LE, we told the man no we heard we could get it for less on the other side and are willing to wait as that is were we wanted to go ...

... optional extra tours organized and a local was pulling over random cars-for I don't know what. Back to the airport, we had a local flight from Cairo to Luxor at 6.20am. Got to meet a few of the tour people, the youngest is 11yrs old, the oldest looks about 103. So a wide age range and not very many of us, 18 to be exact. A few more Aussies on the tour besides us, some Americans ..and thats about it. We waited patiently at the airport to the universal sounds of Kenny G and saw the ...

... of taking us to a place downtown near the hotel, we traveled by bus for about 45 minutes. Our route consisted of driving to the outskirts of the city to a spot with a great view of the Pyramids... only then we made a left and headed in the opposite direction. We drove and drove and drove for about 15 minutes through some pretty ratty outskirts of town before we got to a resort like place which boasted that it had a casino as well. We were herded to an outdoor ...

... the Colossi of Memnon - two huge statues on the way to the Temple of Hatshepsut and the Valley of the Kings. After a history lesson from our guide, who was nowhere near as good as Mustafa, we wandered the Temple of Hatshepsut, or as Mustafa told us to help us pronounce it "Hot chicken soup." The colors inside the temple were extremely well preserved - bright blues, yellows, reds. While we were at the temple, it started to rain! Well, it was more of a ...

... somehow able to produce a variety of 50 flowers in the desert, they have the claim to fame for their perfumes.  So did I buy some?  Of course!  I didn't feel stupid at the time, but after realizing how much of scam I was led to believe, I became quite angered that I now have to lug around four small bottles of perfume.  Well at least my house will smell really nice for the next few months!   Anyway, I digress.  After the perfume shop we went to the riverside and boarded a ...

... see (well, in a temperature controlled glass case).    The tomb and antechambers seem quite small and there is some evidence that it was quite a hurried piece of work - part is undecorated.    While there are now just a few artefacts in the tomb, including one of the concentric coffins, we later saw the display of the principle artefacts in the Archaeological Museum in Cairo.  Catering for every aspect of life from slippers through chairs and beds to chariots, they are ...

... nous logerons au Winter palace et est que nous avons une croisière sur le Steam Ship Soudan !

Je suis très surpris par le bleu du Nil alors que je l'imaginais d’une couleur ocre, une eau trouble chargée de limon. Mais la preuve en est que le barrage du lac Nasser assure la filtration de cette eau qui fertilisait jadis tout le pays.

Le Nil donne un caractère unique au pays, il faut imaginer que cette eau donne la vie à cette terre aride et désertique. Ainsi le ...

... of its valuables.

All that is left these days is the magnificent wall paintings of the tombs. We visited three tombs, with the tomb of Ramses IV being by far the most impressive. It was quite incredible to stare at paintings and hieroglyphs (the Egyptian for of pictorial writing) that were over 4000 years old in some cases yet still looked as if they had been painted yesterday. I found it hard to comprehend the Roman cities of some 2000 years ago, but ...

... their local handicrafts. I make the mistake of purchasing one and am then identified as an easy target with them all making a beeline towards me. Eventually the rest of the group decide they are done and we start our journey by van, accompanied by the requisite police convoy to Luxor. As we are approaching town we witness a motorbike swerving into and hitting a young girl without so much as a glance over his shoulder ...