Egypt: Day 10 (Karnak Temple and Esna Lock & Dam)

We spent Day 10 at the Karnak Temple in Luxor. The temple is an enclosure containing a number of temples to Amun, and some parts of the eastern side of the complex may have been built as early as the 20th century B.C. In Day 7, we mentioned that temples are built inside out - so the outermost ring is the newest. The temple was built by many pharoaohs throughout a long period of time, Amenhotep III, Seti I, Ramses II and Hathshepsut.

There won't be much of a history lesson because Dave is unavailable to help with this blog.

3D map of Karnak Temple . Our tour guide said to properly see Karnak Temple, because of the massive size, you would need a week there. We spent a few hours there. I don't think I could spend a week there because it's so hot outside and I cannot understand all of the hieroglyphs.

Walking into the Karnak Temple.

The pictures don't do the columns justice.

Karnak Temple is the largest temple in the world.

One of few couple pictures we took in Egypt. Need to work on that for the next trip.

This was towards the back area before we turned around.

The hubby!

Right before heading back to the bus due to the heat.

This is my name in Arabic (rotate it 90 degrees though) - too lazy to rotate before inserting.

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We then set sail on the River Nile towards Esna.

Always interesting to see people's homes. It was 102 deg F that day, in the shade.

At the Esna Lock & Dam, the ships slow down their speed. Since the ship slows down significantly, it's a good time to sell merchandise to the passengers apparently...from the river! This was a highlight of the trip for me (but I like stuff like this) and it was hilarious. They would come up in boats to the cruise ship and yell "hello! hello! hey! scarf...one dollar!" If you showed any interest, they would throw it at you whether you were in your room or the top deck. A few of the boats latched on to the cruise ship with ropes. Throughout the whole country, they always try to sell you this kind of stuff...even on the river. I'm not describing it well but it was fun!

This is a pretty good video of the experience.

They love to sell in Egypt!

We didn't want to open up the window in the room because they would think we're interested so we just went to the top deck to take pictures.

"Hello! Hello! One dollar!" (it really wouldn't be one dollar)

Here is the swarm of boats going to the next victims.

Now, at the Esna Lock & Dam.

The river ships go through the Esna Dam one-by-one.

Check out the guy in the Speedo on the other ship!

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At night, the entertainment was a (scripted) play put on by the passengers. They needed more people and Fawzy made be a character, "a sun". Since I had to go on stage, I made Dave join me and he played a "wild boar". Very embarrassing but whatever!

This is one of the pictures a passenger took for us.