Day Five: Valley of the Kings, the Temple of Karnak, the Temple of Luxor
Omygoshomygoshomygosh!!! I've ALWAYS wanted to go to the temples of Luxor and Karnak! Like... way, way WAY wanted to go! And it was AMAZING!!! :D :D :D
And the best way to describe Karnak and Luxor is massive. But to that later.
First off, the Valley of the Kings!! It was pretty cool to go there and see the different tombs. We saw Ramesses II, III and IX(?). We then went and saw the tomb of king Tut. That was cool. I had previously seen his treasures that were on tour, and then through this trip to see his tomb and a later trip to the Egyptian Museum, I have been able to see all of the treasures attributed to King Tut. So the tombs were cool, but we couldn't take pictures and the tombs were fairly stuffy.
So they were cool but we were glad to move on.
Then we went to the temple of Karnak. Aah! It's SO cool!!!! The columns are MASSIVE. You see in pictures how big they are, but then actually being there, it puts it into perspective. It took 11 people holding hands to be able to circle one of the pillars.
It was so cool to be able to see the drawings and hieroglyphics which have lasted for thousands of years. There were still colors visible that have been there for thousands of years. So then after that it was cool to hear how they were able to achieve these wonderful architectural/engineering feats. What they would do is they would build up a section, then fill the entire area with sand (it's one resource they have in abundance) and then build it up some more, and then fill it with sand, until they had reached the height that they wanted, and then they just carted out the sand after they were done and voila! You have a massive temple!
We went around and looked at the different motifs. There were descriptions of the things that the priests did to appease the Gods and also ceremonies where the kings became deified. It was cool to see that.
After exploring Karnak, we took a carriage ride over to the Temple of Luxor. It was starting to get hot at this point. It was only 113 F at this point in the day...
Luxor was so beautiful! It was so neat to be able to see the front of the temple and have these HUGE statues of Ramesses II staring down at you. It was so neat though! And there was an inscription of the unification of Egypt.
But it was neat to walk in and see the colonnade and how gigantic all of it was. It was truly impressive to be able to walk in and just be dwarfed. But it was so neat!
We went further into the temple and then we got to see the portion that was built as a homage to Alexander the Great! Aah! :D It was soo cool to see him portrayed as a Pharaoh and to realize that I can put a specific date on that building! Holy cow!
So... after exploring around the lovely temple, we were all starting to feel not so good. It had gotten up to 120 and even though it's BLAZING hot, I was cold. So... I decided to go back to the hotel and so a few of us got a carriage ride back to the hotel and went and had lunch and relaxed.
After that we got prepared to leave. A few of us went back to the Souk to get some things and I went with Stacey, Melissa and Lauren to get some scarves. After that we came back and relaxed. I hung out with Ashley and Mac and chilled before dinner. After dinner we all went to the train station and took a train from Luxor back to Cairo.
Uck, it was a horrible train ride. It was bumpy and no one could sleep at all. Blech. But now I can say that I've been on an overnight train... in Egypt.
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