Day 10 - Luxor (ancient Thebes)

Waking up happened several time through the night, but when 6 am rolled around, we were treated to breakfast. 4 types of bread...with jam....and butter. Not fancy, but it is consistent with the Egyptian diet. Did you know that 60% of the Egyptian diet is bread? tis true. What's Atkins again?

So, we were ready to take on the city and dropped our luggage off in our 5-start hotel, the New Winter Palace right on the Nile. With a view of the Nile and the Luxor Temple. Really cool.

So, we trekked to the Luxor Temple and I liked it. Great columns and posts measuring 24 meters high (like 70+ feet) with a cool avenue of sphinxes and huge statues of pharaohs. I really liked it. Then we walked to the Karnak Temple that ended being about 3.5 km away. But at 10 am, it was nice and cool. The Karnak Temple is HUGE!!!! Oh man. The walls must have been over 100 ft tall and a colonnade of 134 enormous columns. Hieroglyphs everywhere and several still retaining their color. We saw 2 amazing obelisks created by Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh (though not the only female pharaoh). This temple was just stinking huge. Don't worry, pictures are coming...

After the Karnak temple, we started walking back to the hotel and came across a nice cafe. The Oasis cafe where I had a wonderful spicy lentil soup and fresh fluffy bread. Yummydoodle. After lunch, we were pooped and decided to take a nap during the hot part of the day. 4 hours later (we were tired), we got up and went to the bazaar in town for some shopping. The so-called 'No Hassle' market, was a bunch of bull. The hassle, or hustle, never ended. Around 9pm, we went back to the Karnak Temple for the Sound and Light show. In the lonely planet guide, it is taold to be a Hollywood style show that truly shows the temple off. Well, the narration was cheesy, but the lights were cool. It was wonderful seeing the enormous place light up in the night sky. Beautiful. Afterward, a touch more 'hassle-free' shopping then to bed.