Egypt 2: In which we discover that Nubians are green

Ok, Nubians aren't actually green. But I'll explain that later.

I'm back in the states now after a wonderful trip to Egypt. Seeing snow is quite strange and a little depressing. But that's ok, I have lots of sunny memories.

Back to the trip.... The Nile cruise was wonderful. After lunch on the boat and an afternoon of sailing, we stopped at Kom Ombo temple around sunset. Kom Ombo was similar to Philae (many of the temples we saw follow a similar formula, with pylons in the front followed by hipostyle halls (with big columns) and a holy of holies, where only the high priest and king were allowed). Kom Ombo is a little different because it is dedicated to two gods: Sobek (the crocodile god!) and Horus. Out in front of the temple was a group playing Nubian music, which was quite cool.

Our next stop (the next day) was the temple at Edfu, which is located a little way away from the shore. Because of this, we got there in a horse-drawn caleche, which is not an unpopular form of travel in Egypt (though mostly for tourists... donkey carts are more common among the Egyptians). We arrived at Edfu for sunrise (a lot of our days started out quite early to beat the heat and the crowds). It was quite impressive, with a lot of rooms and hallways (many years after the temple was built, Alexander the Great came and built his own holy of holies within the old one...). It even had it's own resident cat! Cute.

Then back to the boat to continue on our way. I spent a lot of time just watching the shore pass by either from our room or from the lovely top deck. At some point during the trip we passed through a set of locks, and many of the passengers went up to the top deck to watch. On either side of the boat there were vendors trying to sell souvenirs and kids asking for baksheesh (tip). Some of the crew had to prevent the vendors from getting on the boat and trying to sell us things.

That evening we arrived in Luxor and visited the (aptly named) Luxor temple. This one was full of statues of pharaohs, mostly Ramses II, of course. Leading from Luxor temple to Karnak temple (another temple in the city of Luxor) is Sphinx Avenue, a 2.7 km road lined by sphinxes on either side. It was really cool, but is as of yet unfinished. Excavators may run into some difficulties, though, since the avenue goes through/under a church and other buildings.

That night on the ship we had a show, with Egyptian music (two drummers and a keyboard set to sound like traditional instruments, hehe). The first performer was a guy who did a dervish-like dance, with two huge skirts and tambourine-like drums (no bells). While spinning, he made shapes out of the four drums, not unlike juggling. He also did some fancy moves with the skirts. It was quite cool, and (if I had the power) I was ready to recruit him for Cirque du Soleil.
The next performer was a belly dancer in a very tacky costume, but who danced quite well. I was happy to see that a lot of the moves she performed were similar to what I had learned in my belly dance class in Portugal. Our guide proposed that I get up and dance, but, being myself, I was too shy.

At this point we were permanently docked in Luxor, but still stayed on the boat for one more night. The unfortunate thing about being docked is everyone else is too! We were in the middle of a "stack" of about six cruise ships, so our views were sadly quite diminished. To get to the shore, we had to climb through a bunch of other boats!

The next morning was another early morning--on our agenda was the valley of the kings and Hatshepsut's temple! Very exciting. The geology of the Valley of the Kings is gorgeous, especially in the early morning light, but unfortunately, pictures weren't allowed. We visited three tombs which were all very beautifully decorated on the walls with heiroglyphs and paintings, many of which looked like they had been painted much more recently than 4000 years ago. Next we got to see King Tut's tombs, which was not as interesting as the other ones because it was smaller and had fewer wall paintings. None of the treasure found there is there anymore, so it's pretty empty, except for 1 thing: Tut's mummy! It turns out he was actually quite a short guy (he was only 18 or 19, after all).

Next we visited Hatshepsut's temple, on the other side of the mountain from the valley of the kings. Hatshepsut was a female pharaoh (the only one, I believe), so all the staues of her make her look like a man. The temple was quite impressive in itself, but is also famous because it was the sight of a 1995 terrorist attack on tourists. Guards were posted on the hillsides around the temple for protection.

Most tourist sites, hotels, and cruise ships in Egypt have more security than in the US. Almost everywhere we went had a metal detector, and some places had bag x-rays. In the airports there were two or three security checkpoints. The thing is, most of the security check was just the guards profiling us, since most people made the metal detectors beep. If you looked ok, they let you through. It was kind of silly, but I suppose the guards are experienced in telling the difference between tourists and terrorists.

This day was a busy day. Next stop was Habu temple, another temple similar to all the others we'd seen, but almost empty (very nice!). This one holds a giant statue of Ramses II, that was toppled in an earthquake a couple millennia ago and is now lying in a very undignified jumble of broken pieces. After Habu we saw an ancient village built for the workers who built and decorated the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. They themselves had their own small tombs which were exquisitely decorated like those of the kings; in my opinion, the paintings were even more beautiful (take that, pharaohs! The workers probably saved their best work for themselves!). A guide inside the tiny, hot tomb told us that the people painted with green skin (which I had been seeing in other tomb paintings) actually represented the Nubians. Funny that the Egyptians painted what was supposed to be dark brown skin green, but who knows what they were thinking. I've looked it up and found that Osiris was often painted green because he was god of vegetation, so I'm not sure what to believe, but I suppose the main point is that there were green people in the tomb paintings. Probably aliens, I'd guess. :)

Next was a stop to see two giant statues called the Colossi of Memnon, because the Greeks thought the two statues depicted their hero, Agamemnon. Beats me why. They're actually statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III.

I have to go now, but will be posting Egypt part 3 ASAP. To look forward to: Karnak temple, fancy hotels, towel animals, pyramids, camels, rain, and Cairo traffic!