Nile River Cruise
The next day, we would leave Cairo to go to Luxor. It was about a two-hour flight to get to Luxor. The airport wasn’t too big, so it was much easier getting through this one than the one in Cairo. This is when we began touring many of the temples and ruins up and down the Nile River, all the way to Aswan.
After having been to the Saladin Citadel and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, we would go on to visit the Karnak Temple and Open Air Museum in Luxor, later coming back to revisit the Luxor Temple, then the Edfu Temple, the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, the Medinet Habu Temple, the Kom-Ombo Temple & Crocodile Museum, the Philae Temple, and the Abu Simbel Temple.
The boat itself wasn’t incredibly large, but it was a cruise ship. Stegienberger, as well, the same company that gave us our hotel in Giza/Cairo. All of the waiters and staff were male. A curious note. I only remember women staff working in the Cairo airport and a very few select in Luxor. Almost every morning, around 5 in the morning, they would be blasting the prayer in Arabic for everyone to hear. On more than one day, that woke my mom and me up. Like the hotel, we had a wonderful selection of breakfast every day.
On the first day, we would visit our first temple, starting with Thoth. It was here that, during one of the meditations Mayk did with us in the group he heard my guides communicate to him, “Leo, we are so proud of you and the progress you have made.” This temple did not have as much memory for me as some of the other places we visited did.
The second day, we went to the Pharaoh’s Valley, where many of the tombs were kept. The Egyptian guard with us was one of the friendliest ones I remember being with us on this whole trip. There was another, but I have to commend his friendliness towards us.
The next day, we would go on a balloon trip around Luxor, which passed by some of the ruins, to which our tour guide said, “Once in a lifetime, this does not repeat.” This was my first time flying on an air balloon. To get to the air balloon, we had to take a van, which then took us on a boat, which then took us on another van, where we finally were in this empty desert field. Not sure why it was such a mission to get there, but it was.
We found ourselves to be one of many tour groups. Everyone was quite amazed as when we took flight, we saw the sunrise with us! The balloon itself felt sturdy, and it was comfortable enough for the group. We took about 2-3 balloons, from what I can remember. When we were landing, it felt a bit like a cartoon as we saw a group of at least 10+ men running to the left or right pulling on the ropes of the air balloon to safely land it.
When we did land, we landed on what must have been one of the crop fields. There was a woman and her children who came to greet us. There was an Egyptian man with blue eyes who came up to my mom and showed her his eyes. One of the men who was with us had recorded a video for us. My mom wasn’t fond of him because he charged us twice for the same flash drive we would later get. We even received a certificate for completing our trip!
The next day, we went to the Sekhmet temple, which had a very interesting black statue of the lion. Sekhmet is one of the many reincarnations of Isis. This is where I think, and many in the group began to take notice of the “guards” in the ruins. They were always these humble Arab men in traditional arab attire, not dangerous nor aggressive.
We would later come to find out, once we got to Hathor’s temple, that these guardians are chosen by the ruins of those they are guarding. I can’t remember too much about this one. Early on, the temples didn’t quite give me the full impact, but the ones later on did, as I will describe shortly.
