This day wasn't as big as the day before. We woke up in Luxor and the plan was to go to the Karnak Temple and the Luxor Temple. That was our pre-lunch plan.
But...instead of just taking the bus to the temple, we took motor boats! It was so much fun! We walked down to the banks of the Nile, to the same place we got on the falucca boats, and we climbed aboard our boats. We were all pretty tired, and our boat wasn't full at all. We had maybe 15 people on there. Maybe less. So we all took pictures and sang pop songs and had a grand old time while we were awaiting our arrival to the Karnak Temple :).
This is my boat :) Unfortunately I'm taking the picture, so I'm not in it.The Karnak Temple is huge! I think they said it took 1700 years to fully complete. That could include the surrounding area and grounds, too....that seems a little long :) But that's what I remember someone saying. Anyway, it's also one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. (Three of which are in Egypt. This temple, the great pyramid, and then another one....so, check and check! Two of the seven wonders of the ancient world, off the list!)
First it had a huge courtyard lined with sphinxes. They were signs of fertility and strength of the kingdom and gods, I believe, to all those who entered.
This is outside the temple, with Rafaat explaining about the temple before we went in.Next we went into another big courtyard area that was the lowest level of the temple. All temples in Egypt have three levels, the lowest being the first you enter into, then the second highest being next, and the "holy of holies" being the last and central point in the temple. There's also A LOT of symbolism for the temple ordinances, which I won't be mentioning really, cause I don't know much, but those of you who do will be able to recognize it.
This is inside the first courtyard, and there is a temple entrance right behind my head. It was just a little room off the side of the first level of holiness.
Okay this is inside that temple. There was a cool window with light streaming through. You can't see the ray of light very well in this picture, but I just thought it was cool.
This is a row of huge Egyptian statues on the other side of the hall.Okay, so inside the second highest holy place, there is a big columnade courtyard. The columns are massive! We were asked to try to explain how they got them all into such a tight area, so close to each other, and none of us could come up with the answer. So, finally Rafaat our guide, just told us silly americans. The columns were constructed of disks stacked on top of each other, but the discs are huge! They weigh tons! So if they just stacked them, how would they get the top ones on? Here's how. They build the courtyard and then put the bases of the columns down where they wanted columns. Then they filled the whole room up with sand, level to the tops of the bases, and they stacked the next column on top of them. Then, they filled it up with sand again and dragged the next layer up on top, and so on a so forth. When they finally got all the discs on, they had to dig the sand out of the area. Ingenious, right? These people were definitely hard working and very diligent with their work. It is because they loved their religion and their gods so much.
These are the columns! They are just huge! It's unreal! This temple was destroyed, and then reconstructed, so some of the parts are missing, but the fill-ins are the only places that there are no carvings. The entire column, each and every one, had carvings on it.
Taking break in the shade :)Anyway, after that we walked down and we saw a huge obelisk. It also has a cool story behind how they erected it, but I don't think I could do it justice on a blog. It involves building a huge box-shaped mound of sand, with two of the sides having ramps on them, and then digging a tunnel underneath the box. Then they used oxen to drag the obelisk, end first, up the ramps so the obelisk was in position at the base. Then they hoisted it up, and as the weight of the obelisk fell on the center of the mount of sand, the sand was pushed into the tunnel underneath, and the obelisk stood straight up. Then they just had to uncover the sides. Okay, just kidding, I think I did an okay job. At least in my eyes...you guys may be confused. Sorry! Did my best!
This is the Obelisk. It's huge...and I apologize for the view. It was the only way to get the whole thing.After that was the holy of holies. Very cool. It was interesting though, that as Mormons what we were interested in was the inscription/carving and heiroglyphics on the outer wall. It showed the coronation process for the Pharoahs and includes telling them about eternal life, washing and annointing them, and then giving them a new name, which is symbolized by two Cartouches, or the little ovals that their names are in. You may have seen them? Anyway. Very symbolic. And really cool. We had a little explanation given to us by our Old Testament and religion teacher, Brother Manscill, but obviously he couldn't say too much. I was a little sad that I couldn't understand it better, but Dad said he'd bring us all back to Egypt sometime after I get my endowments.....oops, Dad, should I not have blogged that? Oh well, guess we'll have to go now! :)
This is the Holy of Holies with the Altar in the middle..
This is the panel on the side of the holy of holies, in its entirety.
This is a zoomed up picture of the first hieroglyphic, which shows the king being embraced by the God Osiris, and his own Ra (or his soul) and being told about Eternal Life.After that we saw inside the holy of holies, where the altar was, and then went outside to a pond that was where the priests used to clense themselves, and that was that temple.
That description was very brief for what all we saw, but you get the general idea. It was ahuge temple and took us several hours.
This is an overlook of the temple in the background at the end of our tour.
This is an overlook of the temple in the background at the end of our tour.After that we took little horse-drawn buggies to the Luxor temple! That was fun. Same kind of buggies that we had that nice little adventure a couple nights before, but luckily we don't often get taken advantage of, or have to even think about it, when the center and the tour people arrange everything for us. We're just shepherded like little sheep to and from the next activity. It's rather nice. Cushy, I would say.
I don't have any pictures of the Luxor temple. I apologize, but my camera died. Bad planning. Shame, shame on me. I hope you all forgive me!
The Luxor temple was pretty similar to the Karnak temple, and it had more symbolism on it. We didn't take as long there, and I do know that this time the holy of holies was split into three rooms, each giving a special room to specific people. That was pretty cool. And I bought a book there about the different temples and the valley of the kings so I could show you guys all pictures of the panels when I get home :).
After that we got back in the same buggies that we were in before, and we rode back to the hotel for a quick lunch, and then we had free time! We had all heard about this glorious flea market in town (where we had tried to go before but our little buggy guy didn't take us...) In the buggy ride I was wearing my sunglasses, which I have identified as an excellent way to avoid men and guys who catcall at blond american girls. If you're wearing sunglasses, then they don't know where you're looking and you can ignore them without offending them, since they just don't think that you heard them. Example: we were leaving the Luxor temple, and a group of teenage boys said "Hey beautiful girl, what's up?" but of course, in the accent with the broken English, and I just kept walking with no response. Desired effect achieved. I heard them say from behind me, slightly baffled, "hmmm no english?" Which was great. The other thing about wearing sunglasses is that the people that you want to say hi to and make feel special, you can. For instance: little kids on the street, being hurried by their parents while they were staring at me from the carriage (I guess blonds do cause quite the commotion...). I would wave at them, and they'd be unsure who I was looking at, and so I'd take my sunglasses off and smile, and they'd get really cute, big smiles on their faces. It's just the cutest thing ever.
This is me and Amanda and Cathleen (who is actually wearing a hat I bought for myself...) in the carriage. You will notice that I have sunglasses in hand :).
So we went into the market, and I got tons and tons of cat calls. I generally wore my sunglasses, but some people would even come up in my face and say, "beautiful lady, please, let me see your eyes!" and a few times I showed them. For some reason they like our eyes. Oh well. Egypt was the most intense place for bartering and for buying. They were very, very forward. But not in a creepy way, just in sticking with you and trying to get you to stop and look at their stuff. I once had a problem with someone touching my arm to get my attention, but I quickly and firmly said, "Don't touch me." and he took his hand away and was very apologetic. Even still, we were careful to always have guys in our groups and to stick in the same vicinity. I got some cool stuff, too. :) But you're all going to have to wait to see what it is!
After that we went in and had dinner at the Hotel for the last time.
After that, it was on to the train station! We took an overnight train to Cairo that night. I was a little afraid to see what the train would look like, I'm not going to lie, but that's because of an overnight train that I took from Germany to Paris, which was way more sketchy than this train. We go first class, five stars all the way. At least that's the way to do it in Egypt....which is pretty necessary. There was a really funny moment where we all had been assigned rooms and they had compacted the rooms too much, so instead of two to a cabin, we had four to a cabin, with the two beds and everything. Everyone was looking around going, how is this going to work? But what's even better, is that Amanda and I....our two extra roommates were Brother and Sister Allen. We were especially freaked out by that one hahaha. But they got it all solved, in it turned out we had the whole car to ourselves. :)
Anyway, the train was pretty good. I slept okay, except for a door that wouldn't be secured and therefore kept clanging. But it was nice. The one thing we were all getting tired of was the food....we had meat and carbs all that week, and a few well-cooked veggies. It was a little rough. But still, very fun.
This is Amanda, in our car. the seats folded down into a bed, and then the panel above did too, for bunk beds!
This is our butler! I forgot to tell you that we had a butler. He served us dinner and breakfast, and also unlocked our beds. It was kinda fun.
The hall in our train, thought you guys might like it :)
Anyway, that is day 5! I am going to try to get the rest up soon, okay? Bear with me!
Love you all!
This is me and Amanda and Cathleen (who is actually wearing a hat I bought for myself...) in the carriage. You will notice that I have sunglasses in hand :).So we went into the market, and I got tons and tons of cat calls. I generally wore my sunglasses, but some people would even come up in my face and say, "beautiful lady, please, let me see your eyes!" and a few times I showed them. For some reason they like our eyes. Oh well. Egypt was the most intense place for bartering and for buying. They were very, very forward. But not in a creepy way, just in sticking with you and trying to get you to stop and look at their stuff. I once had a problem with someone touching my arm to get my attention, but I quickly and firmly said, "Don't touch me." and he took his hand away and was very apologetic. Even still, we were careful to always have guys in our groups and to stick in the same vicinity. I got some cool stuff, too. :) But you're all going to have to wait to see what it is!
After that we went in and had dinner at the Hotel for the last time.
After that, it was on to the train station! We took an overnight train to Cairo that night. I was a little afraid to see what the train would look like, I'm not going to lie, but that's because of an overnight train that I took from Germany to Paris, which was way more sketchy than this train. We go first class, five stars all the way. At least that's the way to do it in Egypt....which is pretty necessary. There was a really funny moment where we all had been assigned rooms and they had compacted the rooms too much, so instead of two to a cabin, we had four to a cabin, with the two beds and everything. Everyone was looking around going, how is this going to work? But what's even better, is that Amanda and I....our two extra roommates were Brother and Sister Allen. We were especially freaked out by that one hahaha. But they got it all solved, in it turned out we had the whole car to ourselves. :)
Anyway, the train was pretty good. I slept okay, except for a door that wouldn't be secured and therefore kept clanging. But it was nice. The one thing we were all getting tired of was the food....we had meat and carbs all that week, and a few well-cooked veggies. It was a little rough. But still, very fun.
This is Amanda, in our car. the seats folded down into a bed, and then the panel above did too, for bunk beds!
This is our butler! I forgot to tell you that we had a butler. He served us dinner and breakfast, and also unlocked our beds. It was kinda fun.
The hall in our train, thought you guys might like it :)Anyway, that is day 5! I am going to try to get the rest up soon, okay? Bear with me!
Love you all!
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