I was able to have a fairly easy day today - a wise move given the extreme heat. I had two main objectives for the day; travelling from Cairo upcountry to Luxor, and starting my exploration of Luxor in the afternoon.
The start of the day was leisurely, waking up at 7:30 am, having breakfast at about 8:30 am, doing e-mails and making a phone call to my mother who is in hospital, and then checking out at about 10:15 am. As I was waiting to go down in the lift, a uniformed man approached me and established that I was about to check out. He asked whether the room had been satisfactory, and when I confirmed that it had been, he proudly told me that he was the one who had been personally servicing my room – an intriguing thought as he had no idea from which room I had come. He was so persistent that he should receive some ‘baksheesh’ (new word for the day = bribe or tip), that he was standing between me and the lift and would not let me enter despite my best efforts. The lift went without me. Fortunately, sensing my disappointment, he graciously allowed me to catch the next lift.
I took my life in my hands once again by taking a taxi to the airport. Starting price = 180 pounds. Agreed price after haggling = 60 pounds. Amount shown on the meter when we arrived at the airport = 32 pounds. To understand these figures, you divide by 5 to get US dollars, so at 60 pounds it was still fairly good value, especially given the theme-park-like excitement of the trip.
My flight from Cairo to Luxor was with Egyptair Express on an Embraer 170, a slightly shorter version of the Embraer 195 that I had taken from Amman to Cairo a few days earlier. These Embraer Regional Jets are wonderful little planes, with plenty of room in a 2+2 layout. I had a window seat with good (if hazy) views of the desert between Cairo and Luxor. Flying into Luxor, it was evident yet again what an important lifeline the Nile River is for Egypt. There is a narrow strip of green, irrigated farmland lining the banks of the river for a kilometre or two, and beyond that there is just expansive desert as far as the eye can see (which perhaps was not that far today because there was quite a lot of sand and dust in the atmosphere).
The official temperature on arrival at Luxor at 1:40 pm was 43°C, down a little from the 46°C it had been a little earlier in the day. In stark contrast to my previous flight, my bag was the first one onto the carousel today, and I was soon on my way to my accommodation, a small non-signposted guest house in a less than elegant laneway (see photo left) run by an Irish lady named Mara. I had discovered the guest house, appropriately named Mara’s House, on some hotel review websites, where it had received rave reviews.
Having arrived, I can understand why. Mara has constructed the building herself, and it has huge high ceilinged rooms, with separate dining/living rooms, bathroom and bedrooms. Mara has arranged a driver for my travels tomorrow (important because my time here is so limited), and spent the time at check-in describing Luxor, including where to eat, what to do, describing ways to minimise (and hopefully even avoid) rip-offs, and I was even brought a welcoming cup of coffee after moving into my room - with a promise of cups of coffee delivered to my room whenever I like. Breakfast is also brought to your room at whatever time you request. There is free internet (provided you are within 3 metres of the hub, which sits on the reception desk). The rooms even have a minibar with cold drinks and snacks at almost supermarket prices to save guests having to carry food and drink long distances in the heat. This is one place I can recommend heartily.
I have a small travel alarm clock that includes a thermometer, and when I checked the outside temperature on the balcony of my room at 3:20 pm this afternoon, the temperature was still quite high at 53.5°C. It made me realise two things. First, official temperature readings seriously underestimate the actual heat you experience when you are outside on a summer day. Second, there was no reason to rush out to do sightseeing; time would be better spend for a while resting indoors, typing my daily travel diary, and waiting for the cool of the afternoon to kick in.
Sadly, the cool of the afternoon never did kick in, so I headed off to start my explorations at about 4:00 pm. My first stop was the Railway Station where I needed to buy my ticket for the journey to Aswan the following evening. Train and bus travel in Egypt is somewhat problematic because the Egyptian Government keeps changing its mind about which trains it will allow foreigners to use. My hope was to book a ticket on Monday’s 5:00 pm train to Aswan. Sadly the computers weren’t working so no tickets were being sold, but I was assured that I would be able to ride in the 5 pm train, which by the way, is expected to depart at 6:10 pm.
Luxor is built on the site of the ancient city of Thebes, which once controlled a vast empire. The city reached its zenith between 1550BC and 1050BC when the population reached about a million people. Even today, Luxor is a substantial city with a population of about half a million people. On a Sunday afternoon, even the city centre was strangely sleepy, aside from the touts and horse carriage drivers who seemed to have extraordinary difficulties with that very basic English word “no”.
Apart from the railway station, I really had only one significant destination to explore this afternoon – Luxor Temple. Dominating the city centre of Luxor, right across the road from McDonalds, Luxor Temple is a huge stone complex that dates back to the times of ancient Thebes. It has, however, been added to and changed over the centuries, the most recent addition being in the 13th century when a large and somewhat incongruous mosque was added to one of the main interior courtyards.
A long avenue lined by sphinx marked the main approach to the temple (see photo to the left), although everything was closed for some unknown reason today. Nonetheless, I was able to circumnavigate the entire complex on foot via a path that encircles the complex. This enabled me to see the temple from all sides, including some quite close views of the beautifully fine carvings of ancient Egyptian life on some of the walls.
My afternoon visit to the centre of Luxor today was simply a taster of this great ancient city, which I will explore in depth tomorrow. My aim is to rise early, have breakfast at 6:30 am, and then depart at 7 am to spend the day exploring both the eastern and western banks of the Nile before returning to catch the 5 pm train to Aswan at 6 pm.
