Egypte / Egypt 2002

July 8, 2002 – Edfu – Luxor

After the last breakfast we are saying goodbye to Tarek and its crew. See you next time!!! Inch’Allah!!!

After leaving the felucca, we are going to Edfu but we have a very limited time to enjoy the site, only 40 minutes before the start of the convoy to Luxor. So I am the only one wo would like to try to see something of one of the most beautiful temple in Egypt because the temple has its original roof. The temple dedicated to Horus falcon-god was built only around the birth of Christ but it is a really well preserved temple because he was buried under the sand for hundreds years.

Edfu temple: the outer wall

The temple is very impressive with huge dimension even if the number of tourists is higher than in Abu Simbel, you are clearly astonished by this huge piece of work. The entrance walls are 36m high with 2 falcon statues on both sides of the passage. I then enter the inner square, the offering square with many columns all around. Finally we enter the part of the temple with its original roof and many rooms are well decorated. In one of them right in the middle at the rear, I can see between two groups of tourists the rebuilding of a wooden boat which was used to carry the Horus statue during the ceremonies.

The entrance walls of Edfu

Of course, with such a limited time, it is very hard to fully appreciate the site and with these hundreds of tourists, it doesn’t help much. Unfortunately, it is time to go and our driver is using his horn as he sees me near the entrance. All right we can move to the military check point.

Around 10am, we are right on time to take part in the convoy to Luxor and in 1:30 we are in the street of the Happy Land Hotel. The Jamaican family must have an agreement with this hotel as every minibus is coming here. With Salim we decide to go to the Grand Hotel, which was warmly recommended y many travelers on the web. This departure is not really appreciated by the hotel manager but Salim makes him understand in a very explicit way that we want to leave this place!!! I am sure this guy still remember us ;o) !!

To make a long story short on Luxor, it is good to know that the name of Luxor comes from the Arabic Al Uqsur meaning “The palaces”. At pharaohs time and before the arrival of Muslims, the city was known under the name of Thebes.

We wander in the streets of Luxor trying to find our way on the LP map when at a crossroad, we are catched by a guy on a bicycle. This guy is working at the Grand Hotel so he comes with us to the hotel. The welcome there was really nice and we take a double room with a powerful fan, like an helicopter in the room!! In the lobby we meet the entire team. They rapidly propose us to take a tour to visit the west bank (60 / 85 EGP) but as we have a lot of time we will do it on our own tomorrow morning.

After few hours of break on the roof, we are heading to the temple of Luxor to visit it at day time but also at night to see the difference. We arrive at the entrance at around 4:30pm and as it is opened until 9pm we will have enough time to really enjoy the place.

Luxor obelisk

Inside the temple of Luxor

The temple is really really great, the entrance is guarded by a single obelisk because the other one is located in Paris on the Place de la Concorde. The site is really missing this second obelisk. The magic becomes more and more present as sson as the sunset is coming, the alley of the sphinxes gains in magnitude and the number of sphinxes is really impressive.

One of the sphinxes

The temple of Luxor is dedicated to Amun God. The temple has to be taken as a whole with the Karnak temple because the sphinxes alley in Luxor was in fact a 2.5km alley that unified Luxor temple to Karnak temple. The Luxor temple was built during the XIVth century before Christ. A mosque was built nearly on the site in one part of the great square. The mosque is heightened compared to the temple because the Muslims built it on what they think it was the ground but the temple was a little bit buried under dust and sand.

The temple of Luxor at sunset

The night is falling on the site and with a beautiful lighting it is like visiting another monument at night. The lighting betters the different parts of the temple. The guards show me the nicest places to take beautiful pictures but without a tripod it is pretty hard, I have to take risks.

Magical light

On the site, we meet Jorge, the Mexican guy on the felucca who is also visiting the temple at night. We finish the visit together and Salim is once more acting like a friend for guards or locals. He didn’t stop drinking tea and talking to them since we are on the site.

A different temple at night

When we exit the temple, we stop at a sandwiches’ stand to take away some specialties: sandwiches with salad, eggplant, potatoes and falafel. 1 EGP for each sandwich, it is really cheap.

We all come back at the hotel where we eat our sandwiches while drinking a cold Stella beer. Then, we smoke a shisha with an apple flavor tobacco, it is really delicious!! Just before 1am, we end this party because we set an early rendezvous tomorrow morning at 7am in front of the pier of the ferry for the west bank.

Main expenses of the day :

Minibus to Luxor : 10 EGP

Edfu entrance : 10 EGP (student fare) otherwise 20 EGP

Luxor temple entrance : 10 EGP (student fare) otherwise 20 EGP

Grand Hotel night : 6 EGP (12 EGP double room with a fan)

Drinks (water, soft drinks, tea…) + evening meal : 20 EGP