We had another fabulous buffet breakfast. After breakfast, we headed out of the hotel to connect to the internet. It's frustrating that the hotel's rate is $11 per hour for internet, when outside it's only $1 per hour. In fact, we've realized that Egypt has the cheapest internet connections, but unfortunately, the hotels in Egypt (at least Hilton), have been the most expensive to connect! I guess the tourists subsidize everything :).
After getting incredible sticker shock for our dubai hotels (even though we thought we were prepared), we headed to the Karnak Temple, a brief but exhaustingly hot 15 minute walk. Karnak temple is a huge temple complex that was dug up and partly reconstructed in the early 1900's. It was created about 3300 years ago and houses the Great Hypostyle Hall, the largest of its kind in the world. Composed of 134 columns representing the papyrus flower, the hall is considered to be one of the most beautiful structures of its time.
The Karnak and Luxor temples used to be connected by a stone processional road, lined by ram sphinxes. As we entered, a few dozen ram sphinxes were on display, in various states of erosion. After passing through the hypostyle hall completed by King Ramses II and then past two huge obelisks of Queen Hatsheput. The whole temple itself is an assortment of different pharoahs of the New Kingdom, as sections were continually added on by the kings and queens during their reign. We were amazed by the expansiveness of the temple, just as we thought we had reached the end, there were more columns and structures behind. Even more incredible, is that the temple is only 1/3 excavated so far. This place is huge!
In some locations, there were still colors left on the carvings. It's difficult to imagine what the egyptian era looked like, so many colors, statues, temples - quite impressive for mankind 3-5000 years ago!
The sun was strong today, and we were feeling it. It wasn't a humid day, so it's a bit dangerous, as the sweat dries quickly, so you feel somewhat cool, but you get dehydrated quickly. We purchased a drink - funny - as you can even negotiate how much you pay for a soft drink! We could buy a 1.5 liter of Dasani for 2 Egyptian pounds, or about 30 cents. Amazing how strong the dollar is. Our hotel stay at the hilton is only $45 / night. Def. a good (financial) time to visit Egypt :).
After 1.5 hours of touring the temple, we had pretty much been templed out. After 6 days of dealing with the locals asking for baksheesh for pointing at a heiroglyph and saying, "look, look, a gazelle/amun/etc.", we were getting a bit tired of that too. We somehow made it past the line of taxi and horse carriage drivers trying very hard to get our fare, and began walking to the city center. It looked much closer when we took the taxi :) - it was a 40 minute walk, but we felt like we needed the excercise, as we had been stuck in taxis, buses, trains, and camels lately :0. We stopped off at a hotel along the way for lunch, and then made it to the Luxor temple. Another beautiful structure, this one with an active mosque using part of the old temple walls. Luxor was much smaller however, so you could see about 80% of the temple from just walking around the outside walls. As I pointed out, we were templed out, so we just strolled along the outside, and enjoyed the views.
We caught a horse carriage back to the hotel for just $3, as we as had said no so many times along the way, that we had received offers from many drivers to take us for just a few cents. We didn't want to take advantage of their situation, so we figured we'd pay a "fair" price for the 15 minute ride. What is annoying, though, that the driver both last night and today asked for baksheesh for the horse - what's next, baksheesh for the road?
We sat along side the Nile back at the Hilton, and enjoyed a few beers and laughed at a few tourists taking the Felucca rides :). It was an enjoyable evening.
Final thoughts on Egypt:
Food: Awwww. This is the best way for me to describe the food. We have been in Egypt for 7 days I believe. 5 of which at least one of us were sick. It was difficult, and that definitely contributed to the McDonald's counter going up! PS: Don't drink the Egyptian wine - I'm a big fan of vinegar, but not like this!
Beer of Choice: Sakkara - hey there's a pyramid on the front :).
Memories: Two words - bak - sheesh. If you're not giving it, you're doing something wrong, camel hunting around the pyramids. froggering across the streets of cairo, visiting people's brothers, incredible friendliness, trying to breathe in the tomb within the pyramid, trying to breath on the streets of cairo, eating to survive, falluca ride being towed by a noisy ferry, Bedouin man grabbing ahold of the camera in the Valley of the Kings, papyrus shopping, getting trapped in the perfume "palaces", bartering for everything including soda and water, a horse carriage driver trying so hard to get us in his carriage, that he went from 20, to 15, to 10, to 5, to 3, to 1, and then said, "free?".
People: The friendliest of all people we have visited. I know they are interested in our tourist dollars, but most of the other countries didn't really care about the money we spent - they thought they deserved it. In Egypt, the people were so excited to have us in their country, and were hoping we would come back, with friends! :). Everyone appears to be working, many for very little, but that's impressive to me at least (as opposed to other places where we just see people on the streets sitting). This is the best example of capitalism!
Economy: 1/3 of Egyptian labor is spent in Agriculture - amazing almost all of this is made possible by the Nile river. Surprisingly, Egypt is the US's largest consumer of wheat, contributing to the over $1 billion of agricultural products imported into Egypt from the US each year. In 2003, monetary and tax reforms contributed to about a 40% devaluation of the Egyptian pound, but is starting to regain strength. There's a lot of external investment within Egypt for its oil and natural gas reserves. Gas at the pump is < $1 per gallon (Not fair), but it does contribute to a very depressing smog in the major cities.
Climate (March): It's hot and dry, and this is just Spring time. It gets in the hundreds during the summer - glad we're here now!
Exchange Rate: 1 US dollar = 5.6 Egyptian Pounds
Recommendation to friends:
Cairo: 9 out of 10 - This is on most people's "love to see" list - the pyramids are enchanting, and the 16 million in "Mother of Cities" have a lot to offer. I would even take a guess that it's the most visited majority Islamic countries by westerners - it's a great place to soak up the daily Muslim life, and learn more about the religion that's been given a bad name.
Luxor: 7 out of 10 - I wouldn't make a trip across the seas to see Luxor, but if you are already in Egypt, it's a nice place to go. The Valley of the Kings is shocking, to see so many kings "hidden" tombs all about 500 feet apart from each other is amazing. The Karnak temple is already baffling, and more of it will be uncovered each year.
View Cairo Photo Gallery
View Luxor Photo Gallery
Day 84 - Luxor < | Index | Photo Galleries | > Day 86 - Dubai
