OUR TRIP TO EGYPT!! Valley of the Kings,Karnak, Luxor and the Bent Pyramid

After the hot air balloon flight our next stop was the colossi of Memnon, which are stone statues which were built 3,400 years ago!!

 Next we went to the Valley of the Kings.

 We were taken on a little motorized train from the entrance to the tombs.

 There are dozen of tombs of pharohs, but we only went into four of them. Below is what the entrances looked like--we went down inside the hill.

Photos weren't allowed inside the tombs. Below I took a picture of the guard at the entrance taking a picture of Lissa and Jason.

This is the picture he took!

Of course the most well known tomb was that of King Tut.
                             
Jason bribed the guard inside King Tut's Tomb and he took this picture of us.
                              
King Tut's mummy was inside this glass case.

Next we went to an alabaster shop where we were given a demonstration on how to make the alabaster products.

 Lissa and Jason bought a few souvenirs there.

 Next we went to the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, which we saw from the hot air balloon.

Here's a close up of the statues outside the temple.

Inside there were more hieroglyphics, and lots of colorful ones. The ceiling was painted blue with gold stars.

After lunch we went to the temple complex at Karnak, in the city of Thebes, which is the largest in Egypt. This model at the entrance gave an overview of what we were going to see.

 The walls behind Kent were represented on the upper left of the model.

One very interesting feature were dozens, if not hundreds, of the same statues, called criosphinxes.
                           
Most of the roads were lined with them.

Here's a close up of some of them. Our guide told us that originally these criosphinxes lined the road between the Karnak and Luxor Temples, which are about a mile apart.

 More impossibly immense statues and pillars filled the temple complex,

as well as some obelisks, all covered with hieroglyphics, of course.

 Here's the only picture we got of our English speaking tour group. Our Egyptologist tour guide is in the white shirt, squatting right in front of Kent.

We drove past part of Luxor Temple during the day, on the way to the Temple of Karnak, and I snapped the picture below. 

 We went back again at about 5:30pm, when it looked like the photo below. Definitely very cool all lit up!

This was the entrance to Luxor, which has been an active religious site for 3,000 years. Fun factYou might notice in the first picture that there is only one obelisk. There were originally 2, but the second one is now at Place de la Concorde in Paris.

 Fun fact:there is only one obelisk at the entrance. There were originallytwo2, but the second one is now at Place de la Concorde in Paris.

 More massive, gigantic amazing statues.

Another fun fact: Alexander the Great rebuilt part of the temple when he conquered Egypt in 332BC.

 The next morning we were up early to fly from Luxor back to Cairo.

On our last day in Egypt we had lunch at a McDonald's in Cairo, which was an interesting experience in itself! I was struck by the fact that it was mostly filled with young women, many with young children. At first I wondered if the Kent and Jason should be there, but then I noticed a couple of Egyptian men there.

After lunch we drove outside of Cairo about 30 miles south to the town of Dashur, where we saw two of the original pyramids. As a matter of fact, they're considered the first true pyramids, and reflect the learning process for building pyramids.
The pyramid pictured below is called the "Red" pyramid, though it didn't look red to me!

Lissa, Jason and I went inside it and climbed to the center.  One difference of this pyramid is that on the outside we climbed up quite a ways to the middle before we went inside.

                             
 This was the view of the countryside from the entrance to the interior.

This is what the passage looked like, which is why Kent decided not to attempt it.

 We had to crouch the entire way to the center.

I just had to put in this super lame selfie, just to show how windy it was this day. It blew sand around and got in our eyes, even when we got back to Cairo.

 Pictured below is the "Bent" pyramid, which was the first one built. We weren't able to go inside.

 Our last group photo of our truly incredible six days in Egypt!!

We flew back to the states via Paris that night.

OUR TRIP TO EGYPT!! The Nile River and a Hot Air Balloon Ride

Pictured below was our cruise ship on the Nile River. We've never taken a cruise on one of the gigantic cruise ships that go in the ocean, so I don't have anything to compare it too, but our room was the size of a regular hotel room

Here's a view of the Nile as we were going up the river towards Cairo, since the Nile flows North. It was nice to travel at night and wake up in a new city each day.

The young man who cleaned our room would leave towel figures in our room for us each day. It was a fun surprise, which I think happens on regular cruise ships.

                                                                Our first stop after breakfast was Kom Ombo Temple.
                         
       Close up of the massive pillars we were standing next to.
                          
It's claim to fame is that it was dedicated to two different Egyptian gods. It was always interesting to me when there was still remnants of the paint that was used in ancient times.

Somewhere in all the hieroglyphics that covered the walls and pillars was the first representation of surgical instruments. The temple was dedicated to a crocodile god, so hundreds of mummified crocodiles were found in the area. We went to a crocodile museum to see some of these mummies, but weren't allowed to take pictures.

We went back to the ship for lunch and some down time, then at 2pm we left the ship again to tour the Edfu Temple. We were taken to a scruffy-looking horse and carriage.

Edfu is the second largest temple in Egypt.

It's also said to be the most beautiful and best preserved temple in Egypt. One of it's striking features was the entrance, with these wall that are 118 feet high! The theory is that flags would have been placed in the indentations.

This is the interior courtyard of the temple after passing through the entrance pictured above.

Below are carvings on the ceiling and a close up of the ten-foot tall statue of Horus, the god the temple is dedicated to.

                             

This is a picture of the inner sanctuary, the holiest area of the temple.

The next several pictures are just of city scenes as we rode on the carriage ride back to the boat.

It was easier to get pictures of every day scenes of life in Egypt from an open-air carriage than from the windows of our tour bus.

Women in burqas.

Men in traditional garb.

It wasn't unusual to see donkey-drawn wagons as we drove through the city streets.

The next morning we were picked up at 4:15am and taken to a motor boat across the Nile to the west bank of the river. There was a full moon, so it was shining on the river and looked awesome.

                                                                  These pictures were taken on the boat.

We had signed up for an optional tour to take a hot air balloon ride.

Apparently the air is usually the most still very early in the morning, which is why we were picked up before dawn.

There were lots of balloons waiting to be filled with tourists.

The baskets were quite large and could hold about 25 people.

As we were floating in the air

we saw a lovely sunrise in the east.

We floated over some historical sites--pictured below is the temple of Queen Hatshepsut.

One thing that really struck me was the contrast between the land near the Nile River and the rest of the countryside, as the picture below shows.

This is the land near the Nile, cultivated into farm land.

This is what is looked like about two miles away from the river.
                             
This was Lissa and Jason's first hot air balloon ride, and I think they liked it.

We'd been in a hot air balloon before and were happy to take another ride, especially in Egypt!

A view showing many of the balloons floating around that morning!

This photo was taken as we were about to land, so we were getting closer to the ground.

It was a spectacular experience, and was over too soon!

After the hot air balloon flight we went to a roadside cafe with a colorful interior, where we waited to meet up with the rest of our tour group who hadn't done it.