Day Three (Part 2) - Luxor Temple

After leaving Karnak our calesh driver was waiting, as promised, to take us for lunch. We were not looking forward to this. He took us to his house were we met his wife, daughter, one of his brothers and his father. His wife made us some food and they left us to eat alone. When we had finished out came the photograph album which we dutifully studied. After around 1 hour we'd had enough and asked him to take us to Luxor Temple. A fifteen minute trip brought us there and again he said he'd wait for us to take us back to the hotel when we had finished.

We again queued for our tickets and then entered Luxor temple. While not as big as Karnak it is equally impressive. At one point both Karnak and Luxor temple were joined by an impressive causeway lined on either side with sphinx statues. This is no longer the case but you can still see some of the causeway and sphinx statues today.

The following are pictures I took while at Luxor Temple. I'm afraid I haven't labelled them yet but that will come when I get more time...

(Click images for larger version)

When we had finished at Luxor Temple we asked the calesh driver to take us back to the hotel. On the way back he asked us where we wanted to go tomorrow. He said he wouldn't take any other tourists that week and would only drive for us. We said we wanted to go to the West Bank to see The Valley of The Kings, etc. He said he would take us, in his calesh, and would pick us up at 7am the following morning. After ignoring our offer to pay him for today we hurried inside our hotel to escape him.

Later that evening we met up with Barbara (the lady we met on the first night) and explained to her what Saymon had said about taking us to the west bank. When she finished laughing she informed us that, firstly, there was no way he was going to get a calesh through the police checkpoints, and that as it was around a 30km journey there was no way we'd want to attempt it in a calesh anyway! She gave us her Egyptian mobile phone and my wife called him to say I wasn't well and that we would not be going with him tomorrow. Barbara told us we should visit Karnak Travel and arrange any excursion with them. They were a little bit more expensive than doing it yourself but at least there was no hassle!

During the day some notices had appeared around the hotel informing guests there was a New Year's party at the hotel. Barbara told us she had already booked somewhere else and asked if would we be interested in joining her. She informed us there would be a show including belly dancers so how could we refuse? We didn't really fancy staying at the hotel for New Year anyway so we said yes and she said she'd get the tickets. Sorted!

Day 4 - Luxor Museum >>