Arising at 4:30AM, we flew to Luxor. (Domestic flights are early so the same planes can be later used for international flights.) The bus-airplane-bus trip to the ship was uneventful.

Upon arrival we had a great luncheon buffet, promising more good food in the week ahead. Unfortunately, due to my stomach bug, most of my meals on the ship were the "special meal:" boiled potatoes, rice, and boiled chicken, with sometimes some broth. The condition steadily improved and finally cleared up on the trip from Aswan back to Cairo.

Luxor temple lit up

Even worse was the fact that we failed to reead the reviews on the web site. Everyone else did and learned that the aft cabins were noisy and smelly from the engines. They got themselves switched out and we were left to suffer. It was NOT a pleasant journey. The staff was great, but the ship stank, literally.

Most of the tour guests, other than myself, visited the Temple at Luxor in the evening. As did almost everyone on every other tour. The Temple is beautifully lighted, but becomes too crowded to enjoy.

Having heard often of the Valley of the Kings, I was eager to see it. It did not disappoint. The tour included three tombs, but not the best, so we forked over the extra nine bucks to enter the tomb of Rameses VI. It was amazing. The exqusite colors remain even today with fantastic imagery all over, especially the ceiling. The overall proportions can be seen in this illicit photo posted elsewhere on the web. One of us lost our ticket to the three tombs, so I wandered around. More interesting than tombs, I found active excavation sites. Let me tell you what happens at such a site.

After the Tombs, we visited an "alabaster Workshop," that is, an opportunity to improve Egypt's economy. The shop keeper/pitchman did an entertaining demo of creating alabaster in collaboration with six men working on various aspects of making alabaster objects. At many places in the spiel, the pitchman paused for audience echo. Whatever our inclinations to provide this, the working guys chimed in right on cue. It made for a quite electric presentation. And the time in the show was not unduly prolonged. Altogether the best "factory tour" I have been on.

In the PM we sailed north to Quena. Most tours sail directly south from Luxor to Aswan, but Grand Circle adds Quena. It may be unpopular because twenty years ago some terrorists attacked a group of German tourists in Queena. The authorities are still wary; for the cruise portion north of Luxor they adorned our top deck aft with a soldier and a card table sporting a tripod-mounted machine gun.

After dinner we joined the optional "Quena by Night" expedition. What a spectacle. They boarded us onto a choo-choo, a series of trams decked out with "locomotive" trappings on the engine. And we rode through the streets of Quena in a sort of parade. All the crossing streets were blocked by several armed guards and car traffic had to wait for us to pass. Many bystanders waved and smiled at us. However, many of us felt embarassed by the whole rigamarole. It was the exact opposite of the keep-a-low-profile approach espoused by security professionals. I sat there imagining how steamed I would be if a tour operator regularly tied up Pittsburgh traffic by parading around a bunch of visiting Egyptians.

The destination of the choo-choo expedition was the Girls Club, an athletic establishment proudly displaying its sponsorship by Suzanne Mubarack. There we witnessed a demonstration of native dances, ending with a whirling dervish. He finished his act by whirling his cape above people in the crowd. Very dramatic.

Dendara temple

Turning back south from Queena, we visited the temple at Dendara, This temple was well worth the visit because many of the carvings/drawings retained their original color. The stairs to the roof were in a squared spiral; the stairs back down were straight, SUpposedly this because the falcon spirals up and swoops straight down; and the falcon god has to go to the roof (carried) to meet hiw bride, the cow god.

After dinner the lounge featured the 1978 movie "Death on the Nile" with a stellar cast of characters. Unlike the book, the murder took place on a river boat and featured a new murder method. We had seen it a few months ago. I remembered who-dun-it, but not how, so I wathed the whole with interest. This time I could keep track of all 13 characters, which I could not during my first viewing.

(Very early Monday morning, some of the others went on a balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings, more or less. Not much wind, but they all loved it.)

Our first stop of the day was an elementary school. The kids were very cute and sang to us in English. School seemed like a happy place. Classrooms held 40-60 students. Girls sit on one side of the room and boys on the other.

Later we were given two free hours in the Temple of Karnak. A huge site with many enclosed temples and monuments. The sacred pool for cleansing was in fact filled with water from the nearby Nile. Two huge obelisks grace the middle. At one time a king wanted to destroy the obelisk of Hatshephut, but the priests forbid it; so he built a huge enclosing wall. I took lots of pictures.

I read through the afternoon while others attended Bassem's lecture on modern Egypt.

For the evening entertainment they had posted a signup sheet where passengers could volunteer for parts inthe skit, "Scary Robbers & the Beautiful Princess." None of the parts--King, Flower, Horse, Robber, ... --appealed to me, and I didn't want to learn lines, so I decided not to sign up. Later they added the part of Narrator. Given how many people have told me I have a good voice, I thought I could handle that. Well. Not just a few lines, I had _all_ the lines. The script was mostly stage instructions telling the players when to be on stage and what they were to be doing. Each of the five acts ended with most of the cast milling about the stage in hilarious behgaviors. The character Curtain was evocative as she opened and closed each act. And sure enough, many people came to me afterward and said I had a good voice. Everyone, narator, cast, and crowd had a grand time.

The Nile shore

Everyone but I visited the Edfu temple. Then we sailed to Kom Ombo, arriving near dusk. Needing a walk, I went along to the temple. Its carvings included a calendar and a drawing of surgeon's tools. The inscriptions, we were told, were in hieroglyphics, greek, and one other language. Bassem explained my inability to see anything but hieroglyphics by saying thet the other scripts were on the top parts of the walls.

After dinner was the "Galabaya Party" where everyone was supposed to flaunt their newly purchased Egyptian finery. The more cynical of us thought this was intended to encourage contributions to the Egyptian economy. I wore my Mexican guyabara shirt and S wrapped a scarf around my head.

The highlight of the day, for me, was to see the Aswan High Dam and Lake Nasser. But commerce trumped tourism. First we spent an hour at a papyrus shop. A four minute demonstration of making papyrus was followed by fifty-six minutes for shopping. The art was more subtle than the old temple/tomb drawings, but not by much. Mostly black outlines colored in with primary colors, as befits a creative process where one person draws the outline and others--less skilled--fill in the colors. I went outside and tried making photos, but there was little to see.

The papyrus shop visit was an experiment by the guides and shop owner. We got up a little early and they opened the shop just for us. We had the shop to ourseelves rather than sharing with four or five other groups. I wanted to ask Bassem if sales per tourist were enhanced this way, but I didn't. At any rate, many papyri were sold.

Outside the shop were the usual assorted vendors, with slightly unusual wares: books marks, tote bags, shirts. I shunned them all. On return to the bus, several compared the prices they spent for the bookmarks; anywhere from ten for a dollar to one dollar each. After we were all aboard, Bassem came on and offered fifteen for a dollar. S got some. Then he had tote bags for two dollars and cotton shirts for three. We bought these as well. Since we trusted Bassem to have arranged fair prices, considerable numbers of goods were exchanged for dollars aboard the bus. Trust in vendors is diminished by the price haggling.

Next the Temple of Philae. With the rising water behind the 1902, British Aswan Dam (in Aswan, north of the High Dam) Philae had to be moved from one island to another. Forty thousands blocks were numbered, disassembled, moved, and reassembled. A short boat ride took us to the temple. Nice island, but nothing remarkable about the temple.

Finally, after two hours of not much, we bused along to the top of the Aswan High Dam. Very impressive. But we could take pictures only from the top of the dam. No view of it towering over us from the valley below. Secutiry was tight, with automatic weapons much in evidence.

Others took a felucca ride in the afternoon, but I read a book.

The evening activity was a Nubian Show. While a few guys drummed, six others contorted and cavorted in various ways. Too loud; we left early.

Our 5AM departure for Abu Simbel was actually an hour later than most tours. Granf Circle does that to avoid the rush. And indeed, hundreds were leaving the complex as we arrived and we had the place practically to ourselves. When our buses left, only two remained in the lot.

The journey is three and a half hours across the Southeren Egypt desert. The sand appeared to be crusty and black; not much in the way of blowing sand or sand dunes. The terrain was pucntuated throughout with forty foot high vegetated mesas. Apparently ground level was once much higher and the flat surface was the result of erosion down to a sturdier layer.

At severlal point we passed bus stops with absolutely no sign of humanity in any direction. Is this pre-planning, wishful-thinking, or hallucination?

Accompanying us was a power line with its towers. We passed several radio antennas and buidlings, all of which needed electricity and one of which had visible electric connection to the power lines.

Abu Simbel

Abu Simbel was moved about a mile and relocate so its astronomical alignment is just the same; twice a year three of the four gods in the inner sanctum are illumined. I had understood that they simply moved the mountain. But not so. They cut it up into 8000 blocks of 20-40 tons apiece. They could have repaired the face of the 2nd from left king, but decided instead to move it as-was. The joins between the blocks are visible, but only if you really look for them.

The path is arranged so the faces emerge as you walk along and look to your left. They are an impressive sight. Since there are no photographs allowed inside, I took many, many phots outside from various angles. Opposite the statues across a plaza is an arm of lake Nasser. No fishing birds, so perhaps there are no fish in the lake yet.

Along side the temple to Ramses is another to his Nubian wife Nefertari (who is not Nefertiri, the mother of Tut). I found a great camera angle to show both temples and some nearby vegetation.

After such an early breakfast, lunch was not until our return at 2:15. Thankfully, the company had given us snack boxes so we did not starve on the way home. When we returned, I dallied in the room and got lunch only after they had run out of the turkey laid on for our Thanksgiving. Not too many hours later was a fancy farewell dinner.

The evening was a visit to a spice market about which everyone enthused; I read a book instead.

(5AM) Fly to Cairo, Farewell party

A second early wakeup. Bus to airport. Uninteresting flight and bus back to the Cairo Marriott. I spent the afternoon writing some of this and letting others use some of my 24 hours of internet time.