Continued from yesterday”¦ The next stop was a temple called Djeser-djeseru (Sacred of Sacreds), built by Hatshepsut, ancient Egypt’s only female pharaoh. The site is also called Deir al-Bahri, after a Christian monastery that once stood here. When it was first found in the mid-19th century, it was in ruins. A team has been working on restoring it since the 1960’s. From the distance, it looks remarkably intact. The temple is built into a mountain face, three stories of evenly spaced pillars on a terraced base.

We ascended to the courtyard on the top floor. Here the carvings were faint, worn by the sun, but it looks like at one point in time every inch of wall space and all the pillars were carved. The pillars were very tall, but not nearly as huge as some of the temples in Karnak. Only the courtyard was open, the inner sanctuary built within the mountain is closed to the public. From the top floor for the temple, you can clearly see the line where the flood valley ends and the desert begins.

On the second level, each pillar is fronted by an enormous statue as tall as the pillar, each statue in various stages of disrepair. The areas that got consistent shade from the upper level had better preserved carvings, with even a few areas with intact paint here and there.

The shady areas of the bottom level had the best preserved artwork, with quite a bit of paint intact. Check out the columns on the first floor. They have Hatshepsut’s head on the top.

Of course, there were locals all over the place hassling us for money, but they were easier to escape here. As we left, we again had to go through a long line of touts. Eric glanced at a shirt, and the tout followed him all the way back to the bus. The tout started at USD$20 for the shirt, and by the time Eric boarded the bus, he was down to USD$1. Even though it was a good deal, he didn’t buy it. He is tired of being hassled and doesn’t want to reward the hassler.

On our way back to the east side of the river, we made a 5 minute stop at Colossi of Memnon. It was once a huge temple, probably bigger than Karnak, built in the flood plane. It was destroyed in an earthquake, and most of the ruins were eroded away in the Nile’s annual flood. All that is left today are two statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III that once flanked the entrance, and a few column bases in the middle of a farm field.

We went back to the same restaurant for lunch as we did yesterday. The food was fine, but during the meal we wished we were at a small café eating real Egyptian food prepared to order.

After lunch, we went on a falucca ride on the Nile. Faluccas are traditional little wooden sailing boats that have been used on the Nile since antiquity. The faluccas here were all painted white with brightly colored trim. Our particular felucca didn’t have sails, just a motor. We made a small loop, getting a nice view of town on the east side and the dry mountains on the west side of the river.

Our last stop before heading back to Port Ghalib was the Luxor Temple, located on the east side of the river in the very center of town. It was the center of town in ancient times, as well. It was built by Amenhotep III, who reigned at the zenith of Egypt’s power and prestige (from 1392 to 1352 BC). Over the years, the temple was covered over by dirt, which protected it. Excavation work began in 1885 and is still ongoing today.

The entrance is lined with sphinx statues, just like the Karnak entrance. In fact, there used to be a road that connected the two temples and the entire 2 mile stretch of road was lined by these sphinxes. Here the sphinxes have a human head and a lion body.

The entrance is similar to Karnak, with two large walls flanked by humungous statues. There is also a tall obelisk at the entrance. Note that those ant like figures at the bottom of the photo are people. The second photo is a side view of the temple from the back of the entrance on. If you laid the photos side by side, you would get a good idea of what the whole structure looks like.

As you walk in, you see a Mosque built basically on the roof of the front corner of the temple. The mosque was built in the 13th century, and 800 year later, is still actively in use today. The mosque was built at ground level at the time, which gives you a good idea of just how much sediment had built up over the years.

The entrance opens into a huge courtyard filled with gigantic columns and statues. One wall has three tiny little rooms that are empty. Once again, the columns, walls, door jambs, and every other conceivable surface was completely covered in intricate carvings.

The room led to a wide hallway completely lined by 65 foot high columns, then to another big open room, then to a maze of smaller rooms at the back of the complex. The smaller rooms were clearly roofed, and were considered the “inner sanctuary”. The back portion of the temple had obviously been altered during the Greco-Roman era. The contrast of architectural styles was painfully obvious, with Corinthian columns next to the Egyptian flower topped pillars, and Greco-Roman niches carved into the hieroglyphs covered walls. There were locals lurking around, hitting people up for money here, too, but this was another place where it was easy to get away from them.

Once we were done there, we piled back into the bus, joined the convoy, drove to Safaga, separated from the convoy, and the bus began dropping people back off at their hotels/ We returned to Kosmos at midnight, after a 6 hour drive. Overall, we were happy with the tour. If we got to choose our own itinerary, we would have skipped the papyrus demo, alabaster demo, and the horse ride, and eaten at different restaurants. We would have spent more time at Karnak, gone to the Luxor museum, and wandered around town to get a feel for the place. We also would have liked to have stayed one more day and see some more ruins. There are tons of ruins there enough to keep you occupied for a month.