Another punishing early start. 4:30 AM this time. As we were checking into the hotel yesterday our local travel agent asked if we’d be interested in a sunrise hot air balloon flight over Luxor. Dawn had read about these when she was originally scoping out Luxor but we dismissed it as something that probably wouldn’t fit into our itinerary. He explained that since we had booked a private tour of Luxor we could move the times around however we liked. The hot air balloon was all of a sudden a viable possibility. One look at Dawn’s face and I knew it was an inevitability. I agreed that we should do it, but I had my mental reservations. I have a weird relationship with acrophobia. High enclosed places don’t usually bother me too much. I verified this when I rode a glass bottom cable car in Hong Kong over some impressive heights. High places without a railing tend to wig me out. I had no idea how I was going to respond to a hot air balloon.
The shuttle for the sunrise hot air balloon left our hotel at 5:10 AM. The shuttle took us to a dock. There we hopped on a ferry that would take us across the Nile while we had tea/coffee and a Twinky (seriously, a Twinky). I was still half asleep, and I don’t handle boats well, so consuming anything on a watercraft was straight out. Fortunately the Nile was extremely calm and the trip across was enjoyable. It was a bit chilly and I regretted not wearing a coat like many of the other people on the ferry (doh!). At the dock on the other side of the Nile another shuttle was waiting to take us to the hot air balloon launch site. It appears that the service has congregated guests from multiple hotels for this morning’s flight. Groups of 12 got assigned to balloons. The baskets were larger than I was expecting. They each had 5 compartments. Three people were assigned to the four outer compartments while the balloon captain rode in the middle compartment. The balloon captain gave us a little preflight talk that mostly centered around landing. Evidently there are three possible scenarios. Scenario one was called the “Egyptian Landing,” which is a smooth landing where the basket just kisses the Earth. Scenario two was the “American Landing,” which involves bouncing the basket off the ground a few times before things come to a stop. Scenario three was called the “English Landing,” which is a full-on hit the ground and drag the basket along for awhile. We were hoping for the Egyptian Landing but had to practice for the other two before lift off.
The sun rose right before we took off, but before long we were up in the air and treated to some amazing views. The ascent felt strange, but peaceful. There wasn’t much in the way of feeling the acceleration of lift. It was more like riding a slow elevator that kept going up. Mind you an elevator powered by bursts of open flame (which are pretty much the best kind of elevators). Once I was standing beneath a ginormous flame thrower belching fire I was glad I had foregone the coat.
One of the things I found very striking about the balloon ride is exactly how abrupt the transition between lush green irrigated field and desert takes place. It's pretty much immediate.
After a bit of a rest and some breakfast we were ready to embark on our second adventure for the day. A guided tour of the Temples of Karnak and Luxor. We met both our driver and tour guide and set out for Karnak. When we arrived at the Karnak visitor center our guide set us down and told us there were three ways we could work the tour and the choice was up to us. If we were interested in archaeology it could be more like a lecture where he would provide a lot of information and we’d take our time making our way through the temple. If we really just wanted to take photos he could point us in the right direction for some key spots and we could wander around as we please. The third option was a kind of hybrid where he’d rattle off the temple’s main attraction headlines and then let us do whatever. We obviously opted for option one. At that point he pulled out a blank piece of paper and a pen and started to hand draw a map of Egypt. He provided a 20+ minute lecture on the history of Egypt and proceed to populate the map with important features as he explain the three unifications of Egypt during Pharionic times and the periods in between. By the end of the lecture we had an excellent context for what we were about to see in the temple. I can’t imagine a better start to the tour.
It turns out our tour guide is very interested in archeology and has an undergrad and Masters degree. He’s working on a Phd in the field, but explained he had to work a day job too, so naturally I liked the guy. He’s been giving tours for 8 years.
Before the tour I didn’t know much about the temple of Karnak or Luxor. To my shame, I hadn’t even connected that Luxor is the same city of Thebes (Thebes was the Greek name, Luxor is the Arab name, the original Egyptian name is Waset). What I certainly didn’t know is the temple had deteriorated over the millennia, but since the late 1800’s there has been an active effort to restore the it. The visitor center has photos over the last century showing various milestones of restoration. Even today there are portions of the temple that are under reconstruction. For some reason thinking of the temple as a “work in progress” instead of just a set of ruins slowly decaying is comforting. Our tour guide explained some of the reconstruction rules. They pretty much don’t fake anything. Obviously if a foundation needs to be shored up they’ll dismantle the area and rebuild it. If they are missing pieces to a hieroglyphic or area they don’t try to “fill in the blank” instead they just fill it in with a smooth sandstone mixture. Looking at the walls you’ll see them mottled with smooth areas from the reconstruction. They don’t repaint anything. If there are colors on the walls they are original. The most they’ll do is clean the area with paper soaked in acetone. Besides time taking its toll, the temple suffered a flooding in the late 1800’s when the set of ancient dams up river that protected the area failed. The result was the temple was flooded for a couple of months and received serious damage. I’m not positive, but I think this may have originally kicked off the restoration project.
Karnak is a pretty amazing place to visit. We were told that it’s the single largest religious site in the world. Pharaohs spent more than a millenium adding bits and pieces to the site. Although actively adding to it went in and out of style during that timespan. According to our tour guide Karnak and Luxor are dedicated to a holy family. There is a father, mother, and son. The father and son’s homes are in Karnak. The mother’s home is the temple of Luxor. Every pharaoh more or less joined the holy family and were then ordained by the father as a divine son to rule over the Earth. Once you “made pharaoh” part of the deal was to then build something at Karnak and/or Luxor to show the holy family you were worthy and also to show the people you were accepted into the happy holy family. Some pharaoh’s had longer reigns than others and really enjoyed temple building (Ramses II ring a bell? A.K.A. Ramses the Great).
Evidently there were also rules to monument building. You could only build a monument of the living... meaning once someone died they didn’t get to be added. This plays out with some Pharaohs being shown with different wives at different times because a wife would die and not get included in future monuments (even if the wife was his one true love... looking at you again Ramses II).
The tour guide did a great job cluing us into how to pull details out of hieroglyphics. Obviously we didn’t have enough time to learn the alphabet, but there are a bunch of little tricks that make understanding the scene a bit easier. His first tip was to look at the direction the heads are facing. If all the heads are facing right, you read the panel left-to-right. If they’re facing left then you read it right-to-left. Same goes for up and down. His second tip was “how to recognize a god or goddess.” (I think that should be a standard title in all tour books.) If the figure has an animal head it’s easy, god/godess. If the figure has a beard look the beard, if it’s straight, not a god. If it’s bent, then god. Feathers are also a giveaway. Figures with feathers over their heads are usually gods, unless the figure is an animal with feathers, then it gets complicated and you start counting the number of feathers to figure out the meaning. What’s in the figures hands tell a lot of the story. If a not god is touching a god that is usually mean the mortal is winning favor. If they are holding a spear they are a warrior (duh). There are a bunch of panels with a figure leading prisoners to the temple for sacrifice, so a rope from a big figure to a little figure usually means an unhappy ending for the little figure.
After Karnak we drove over to the Temple of Luxor. It’s a short drive, only 2 km away. There used to be a road lined with sphinxes between the two. Every year the priests would carry the golden father statue down that road and let it hang out with the mother for a 15 day honeymoon. Over the centuries the road fell into disrepair and was eventually lost and ultimately parts of modern luxor was built over it. There is an effort to reclaim all the land and rebuild the road. Our tour guide told us that perhaps next time we came to visit we’d be able to walk between the temples.
The Temple of Luxor is much smaller than the grand Karnak, but there are some cool things to see there. A couple of giant statues of guess who... Ramses II! The short lived but now famous Tutankhamun got a bit of monument building in for himself and his wife. One of the parts I found interesting was the repurposing of the site as a holy place. Coptic Christians repurposed part of the temple as a church during early Christendom. Part of that process involved plastering over hieroglyphics in order to paint Bible story pictures on the wall. Turns out that they inadvertently preserved some vivid colors on the original artwork by sealing it behind plaster for centuries.
Over time the temple was filled with rubble and eventually people forgot a temple was even there. Much later on they decided to build a mosque on the site for a celebrated holyman. Eventually they figured out they had a Egyptian archaeological site was under a mosque and that posed a conundrum. They excavated around the site of the mosque and now its front door hangs up on the wall of the Temple.
The visit to the temples was an amazing tour. I feel very lucky to have received a private tour from a someone so knowledgeable. The only thing that marred the day is whenever we tried to walk around and take photos the same scene would unfold. An old man who had been ignoring everyone else would spot us and stand up. As we drew near he’d start trying to get our attention and try to get us to follow him to this amazing thing that we missed. Once there he’d point to something on the wall. Perhaps there be some little ritual he show you how to perform and then demand a tip for his valuable service. It would happen in like every large space in both temples. It’s difficult to enjoy the space when a group of men is desperately trying to catch your attention to scam you.
The shuttle for the sunrise hot air balloon left our hotel at 5:10 AM. The shuttle took us to a dock. There we hopped on a ferry that would take us across the Nile while we had tea/coffee and a Twinky (seriously, a Twinky). I was still half asleep, and I don’t handle boats well, so consuming anything on a watercraft was straight out. Fortunately the Nile was extremely calm and the trip across was enjoyable. It was a bit chilly and I regretted not wearing a coat like many of the other people on the ferry (doh!). At the dock on the other side of the Nile another shuttle was waiting to take us to the hot air balloon launch site. It appears that the service has congregated guests from multiple hotels for this morning’s flight. Groups of 12 got assigned to balloons. The baskets were larger than I was expecting. They each had 5 compartments. Three people were assigned to the four outer compartments while the balloon captain rode in the middle compartment. The balloon captain gave us a little preflight talk that mostly centered around landing. Evidently there are three possible scenarios. Scenario one was called the “Egyptian Landing,” which is a smooth landing where the basket just kisses the Earth. Scenario two was the “American Landing,” which involves bouncing the basket off the ground a few times before things come to a stop. Scenario three was called the “English Landing,” which is a full-on hit the ground and drag the basket along for awhile. We were hoping for the Egyptian Landing but had to practice for the other two before lift off.
The sun rose right before we took off, but before long we were up in the air and treated to some amazing views. The ascent felt strange, but peaceful. There wasn’t much in the way of feeling the acceleration of lift. It was more like riding a slow elevator that kept going up. Mind you an elevator powered by bursts of open flame (which are pretty much the best kind of elevators). Once I was standing beneath a ginormous flame thrower belching fire I was glad I had foregone the coat.
I quickly discovered that if I didn’t look down I was fine with the experience. The panorama was amazing and I was glad I took a chance on trying the balloon. After a while the captain announced that we were going to make a quick landing to pick up a couple of passengers that has missed the launch due to a transportation hiccup. We landed and 1-2 people were added to each passenger compartment. This made things rather cramped for the second half of the flight. Initially I was being pressed into the outer edge of the basket and my mind decided to start fabricating scenarios where I fall out of the balloon and go splat. I managed to push myself into the center of the balloon and got a grip on the situation. We ended up landing in some farmer’s field. His kids seem to think a hot air balloon landing in the yard was cool (what kid wouldn’t). The farmer seemed less pleased and it appeared that some heated words were exchanged. The balloon ground crew that were swarming over the balloon preparing to pack it up and transport it seemed pretty indifferent to the farmer’s objections. I got the impression they were basically telling him: “What should we do now? Unland it here?” After landing we did the reverse of shuttle-ferry-shuttle to get back to the hotel.
One of the things I found very striking about the balloon ride is exactly how abrupt the transition between lush green irrigated field and desert takes place. It's pretty much immediate.
After a bit of a rest and some breakfast we were ready to embark on our second adventure for the day. A guided tour of the Temples of Karnak and Luxor. We met both our driver and tour guide and set out for Karnak. When we arrived at the Karnak visitor center our guide set us down and told us there were three ways we could work the tour and the choice was up to us. If we were interested in archaeology it could be more like a lecture where he would provide a lot of information and we’d take our time making our way through the temple. If we really just wanted to take photos he could point us in the right direction for some key spots and we could wander around as we please. The third option was a kind of hybrid where he’d rattle off the temple’s main attraction headlines and then let us do whatever. We obviously opted for option one. At that point he pulled out a blank piece of paper and a pen and started to hand draw a map of Egypt. He provided a 20+ minute lecture on the history of Egypt and proceed to populate the map with important features as he explain the three unifications of Egypt during Pharionic times and the periods in between. By the end of the lecture we had an excellent context for what we were about to see in the temple. I can’t imagine a better start to the tour.
It turns out our tour guide is very interested in archeology and has an undergrad and Masters degree. He’s working on a Phd in the field, but explained he had to work a day job too, so naturally I liked the guy. He’s been giving tours for 8 years.
Before the tour I didn’t know much about the temple of Karnak or Luxor. To my shame, I hadn’t even connected that Luxor is the same city of Thebes (Thebes was the Greek name, Luxor is the Arab name, the original Egyptian name is Waset). What I certainly didn’t know is the temple had deteriorated over the millennia, but since the late 1800’s there has been an active effort to restore the it. The visitor center has photos over the last century showing various milestones of restoration. Even today there are portions of the temple that are under reconstruction. For some reason thinking of the temple as a “work in progress” instead of just a set of ruins slowly decaying is comforting. Our tour guide explained some of the reconstruction rules. They pretty much don’t fake anything. Obviously if a foundation needs to be shored up they’ll dismantle the area and rebuild it. If they are missing pieces to a hieroglyphic or area they don’t try to “fill in the blank” instead they just fill it in with a smooth sandstone mixture. Looking at the walls you’ll see them mottled with smooth areas from the reconstruction. They don’t repaint anything. If there are colors on the walls they are original. The most they’ll do is clean the area with paper soaked in acetone. Besides time taking its toll, the temple suffered a flooding in the late 1800’s when the set of ancient dams up river that protected the area failed. The result was the temple was flooded for a couple of months and received serious damage. I’m not positive, but I think this may have originally kicked off the restoration project.
Karnak is a pretty amazing place to visit. We were told that it’s the single largest religious site in the world. Pharaohs spent more than a millenium adding bits and pieces to the site. Although actively adding to it went in and out of style during that timespan. According to our tour guide Karnak and Luxor are dedicated to a holy family. There is a father, mother, and son. The father and son’s homes are in Karnak. The mother’s home is the temple of Luxor. Every pharaoh more or less joined the holy family and were then ordained by the father as a divine son to rule over the Earth. Once you “made pharaoh” part of the deal was to then build something at Karnak and/or Luxor to show the holy family you were worthy and also to show the people you were accepted into the happy holy family. Some pharaoh’s had longer reigns than others and really enjoyed temple building (Ramses II ring a bell? A.K.A. Ramses the Great).
Evidently there were also rules to monument building. You could only build a monument of the living... meaning once someone died they didn’t get to be added. This plays out with some Pharaohs being shown with different wives at different times because a wife would die and not get included in future monuments (even if the wife was his one true love... looking at you again Ramses II).
The tour guide did a great job cluing us into how to pull details out of hieroglyphics. Obviously we didn’t have enough time to learn the alphabet, but there are a bunch of little tricks that make understanding the scene a bit easier. His first tip was to look at the direction the heads are facing. If all the heads are facing right, you read the panel left-to-right. If they’re facing left then you read it right-to-left. Same goes for up and down. His second tip was “how to recognize a god or goddess.” (I think that should be a standard title in all tour books.) If the figure has an animal head it’s easy, god/godess. If the figure has a beard look the beard, if it’s straight, not a god. If it’s bent, then god. Feathers are also a giveaway. Figures with feathers over their heads are usually gods, unless the figure is an animal with feathers, then it gets complicated and you start counting the number of feathers to figure out the meaning. What’s in the figures hands tell a lot of the story. If a not god is touching a god that is usually mean the mortal is winning favor. If they are holding a spear they are a warrior (duh). There are a bunch of panels with a figure leading prisoners to the temple for sacrifice, so a rope from a big figure to a little figure usually means an unhappy ending for the little figure.
After Karnak we drove over to the Temple of Luxor. It’s a short drive, only 2 km away. There used to be a road lined with sphinxes between the two. Every year the priests would carry the golden father statue down that road and let it hang out with the mother for a 15 day honeymoon. Over the centuries the road fell into disrepair and was eventually lost and ultimately parts of modern luxor was built over it. There is an effort to reclaim all the land and rebuild the road. Our tour guide told us that perhaps next time we came to visit we’d be able to walk between the temples.
The Temple of Luxor is much smaller than the grand Karnak, but there are some cool things to see there. A couple of giant statues of guess who... Ramses II! The short lived but now famous Tutankhamun got a bit of monument building in for himself and his wife. One of the parts I found interesting was the repurposing of the site as a holy place. Coptic Christians repurposed part of the temple as a church during early Christendom. Part of that process involved plastering over hieroglyphics in order to paint Bible story pictures on the wall. Turns out that they inadvertently preserved some vivid colors on the original artwork by sealing it behind plaster for centuries.
Over time the temple was filled with rubble and eventually people forgot a temple was even there. Much later on they decided to build a mosque on the site for a celebrated holyman. Eventually they figured out they had a Egyptian archaeological site was under a mosque and that posed a conundrum. They excavated around the site of the mosque and now its front door hangs up on the wall of the Temple.
The visit to the temples was an amazing tour. I feel very lucky to have received a private tour from a someone so knowledgeable. The only thing that marred the day is whenever we tried to walk around and take photos the same scene would unfold. An old man who had been ignoring everyone else would spot us and stand up. As we drew near he’d start trying to get our attention and try to get us to follow him to this amazing thing that we missed. Once there he’d point to something on the wall. Perhaps there be some little ritual he show you how to perform and then demand a tip for his valuable service. It would happen in like every large space in both temples. It’s difficult to enjoy the space when a group of men is desperately trying to catch your attention to scam you.
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