Day 187 Cruising the Nile

Today turned out to be pretty interesting (as the whole trip has been). Our first stop was in Edfu, home to the Temple of Horus. We were met at the ship by horse drawn carriages to take us to the temple. Nice ride! I must admit I really enjoyed this part of the adventure….. We were pretty excited as we approached the temple. It is one of the best preserved Egyptian temples in existence. The Hawks of Horus guard the gate of the Pylon…. Pretty cool. The walls are covered with amazing bas-reliefs depicting all types of events or stories. It is really amazing. Later in the morning we set sail again heading for our next stop at the Temple of Kom Ombo dedicated to Horus (hawk god) and Sobek (crocodile god). The gave us a chance to spend a big part of the day sitting by the pool and watching the scenery along the Nile…. Very nice. Around 5:00 in the afternoon we arrived into Kom Ombo. It was a fair hike to the temple but off I went. As the guide was getting the ticket he waved me down to where he was to point out a snake charmer…. Wow! I was all over getting photos of this. He had one in his lap and two cobras in front of him. What a photo! And then something happened…. My guide sat down next to the charmer and I took a photo with a snake draped around his neck. I thought what the heck! I replace the guide and the snake charmer draped a snake over my shoulders and gave me the snake to hold just below his head. I must tell you that I am deathly afraid of snakes…. Anything for the photo op….. he then knocked off my baseball cap and put a snake up on my head. I was getting pretty nervous and I guess I was squeezing the snake in my hand a bit hard. It was trying it’s best to bite me….. I was ready to stop the photo session and extract myself….. That was enough… pretty cool! Back to the Temple of Kom Ombo…. The temple is split right down the middle… Half is dedicated to Horus and half to Sobec. They worshipped the crocodile god here because I guess back when this temple was built they would be subject to a lot of croc attacks as they worked their fields along the Nile. A little appeasement of the gods can go a long way…. The temple, while damaged quite a bit , was still impressive. It was a nice afternoon adventure.

Temple of Horus

Temple of Kom Ombo

Scary, scary snakes......

Day 186 Luxor, Egypt

We woke early this morning (0400) and left the ship to go to the Valley of the Kings. Here, 62 pharaoh tombs have been discovered, including the famous King Tut. Photos were not allowed inside the tombs (sorry). We visited 4, Ramses the I, III and IV along with King Tut. They are in amazing shape. The paint is still intact and bright and colorful in all. In King Tut's his mummy is on display.... amazing. Very interesting and informative visit. It was a definite highlight! Next we visited the Temple of Hatshepsut, a woman who was pharaoh. Only men were allowed to be pharaoh but she pulled it off. She even wore a fake beard, cute! The Temple was very large and the statues very large and in great shape. Finally we went to the Colossus of Memnon.... fabulous. They are huge. Too bad it pretty much all that is left at this point. In it's original form it would be the largest in Luxor. We then took a police escort back to the boat (it moved while we were gone). We then spent the afternoon in our 45 degree Celsius (110 F) temps by the pool..... sizzling!!!!! We also got to do some shopping.... vendors sailed up on their small boats and threw their wares up to the top decks for you to check out. Amazing!