Day Eight

Day 8: Luxor

Today we had to wake up at 3am again!!!! But this time we were heading off hot air ballooning. This was by far the best experience ever! It was a last minute decision. Ramsey our tour guild said that he researched into it because one of the girls was interested in doing It and thank god she was interested in it because it was amazing! When we first got there it was pitch black we had to catch a bus from the cruise to a boat the get the boat to the other side of the Nile and then get another bus to the balloon. We then saw three balloons laying on the ground we watched them inflate them with flames. From the hot air balloon you could see the valley of the temples, and these temples that we didn't have a chance to looking at when we were at Luxor. We got up to 5500 in the air it was pretty impressive how we go up so far so quickly. Lots of the houses don't have roofs so you could look into their homes. I saw so many chickens running around in homes hahah. One stage I was saying to Andrew wouldn't it be great if there could be a donkey right there and when I looked there was one right in front of me! Hahah was so funny! We watched the sun rise from the balloon over the Nile it was beautiful!

After the hot air balloon headed back to hotel for early breakfast at 6:30 am because we had to be out of the hotel for 7 to head off to 4 different site seeing activities. The first one was we went to the valley of the kings. This is were they buried their bodies in tombs in a mountain. The tombs we visited were King Ramses the 3, 9 and Thutmose III. The tombs were beautiful rich in colour and carvings all over the room. This is also the place where King Tutankhamun's tomb with his mummy inside the tomb. This is also where they found all of the Mummies they had on display at the Egypt museum. We couldn't take our cameras in at all so it was so annoying how I couldn't document what happened. 

AL- DEIR AL-BAHARI TEMPLE:

We then went to a temple called Al- Deir Al-Bahari temple. This belonged to Queen Hatshepsut. She wanted people to worship her in This temple. She was the wife of Tuthmosis The second. And couldn't have a son so he had another wife but she remained the queen. This other wife had a son. when her husband died legally the son of the second wife could be king but he was still pretty young so the first wife is the sons aunt helped look after the throne while he was growing up. She wanted to be more than the queen of Egypt. So one day she decided that she was going to be the King of Egypt and she was the son of the god Amon Ra. Her whole temple was about her rebirth from a girl into the king of Egypt. She ran Egypt for 20 years then she died and her nephew finally had the chance to be king. He wasn't happy that she stole his crown so he ruined her entire temple by scratching out her name or the entire carving. This temple was pretty cool but it was a shame most the carvings were scratched by her evil nephew.

KARNAK TEMPLE:

The third temple we went to visit was Karnak temple this temple was huge!!!

Karnak is a complex in Egypt where ancient ruined temples are located. These temples are from the era of Pharoah Ramses II, from around 1391-1351 BC. This area was the most important place for worship during this time. The Great Temple of Amun was a very large building, and it is still available to visitors today. The Karnak Temple Complex is located near Luxor, south of Cairo, Egypt. It is visited more than any other historical area in the world, after the Giza Pyramids, and it is the largest ancient religious preservation in the world.

This area is very significant because it reveals much of the history of this area through scenes that are displayed in the complex. There are battle scenes between pharaohs and enemies, and rulers were made a permanent part of history through these memorials. The sandstone that was used in the temple’s complex was brought from over 100 miles away on the Nile River.

LUXOR TEMPLE:

Luxor Temple is among the most beautiful Temples in Egypt. It was known in the New Kingdom period as Ipt-Rsyt, which means the southern shrine. This was to differentiate between this Temple and Karnak Temple, which was the northern house of Amon Ra.

The Temple run close and parallel to the river Nile from north to south. It was constructed on the site of a small Temple of Amon, built by kings of the 12th dynasty. Many people influenced this temple such as King Merenpetah, Seti I, Ramses III, Ramses IV and Ramses VI built many more small additions to the temple. 

During the Christian era, the inner section was converted to a church. The Muslims built a Mosque in the 10th century, which is known as the Mosque of Abou El-Hagag. Ramses II, with the help of his architect added the front part and completed the Temple.




























When we arrived back at the cruise we had to pack up all our belongs and head back to the bus for another 11 hour drive back to Cairo. Tomorrow we are heading to a church and mosque with the locals. Then we are heading to one of the biggest markets in Cairo woohhh finally decent shops. 

Xx