We drove down the same road as yesterday for a few miles, stopping for a photo op at the Colossi of Memnon - two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III built in 1350 BC. As we drove on, we saw more homes painted after a family member made the pilgrimage to Mecca.
At 8:30 we arrived at Medinet Habu, the mortuary temple of Ramses III. It was another interesting tour of a temple with lots of carvings, statues, columns, etc. The fun part was seeing the carvings of Ramses III fighting and winning battles. Rewards were given to soldiers for proof of killing the enemy, all of which were carved into the walls. First, a reward was given for a hand, but that resulted in cutting off both hands and saying two guys were killed. So they went for tongues, and finally penises. In a big courtyard of columns, doves were roosting on all four sides, rather like “The Birds”.
From there we drove on to Ramesseum Temple, Ramses II’s mortuary temple. We first saw the fallen statue of the Ozymandias Colossus which would have stood 62’ in the air. I passed on the tour and watched an archeological dig at the site. These were mainly French archeologists, and it was great fun to watch them carry buckets of rocks, brushing away sections, and digging out finds.
We drove on to Deir El Medina – the workers village for the Valley of the Kings. We went into two tombs here – Sennedjem (which was beautiful) and Inherka (which was not so beautiful). I really wanted to go into the tomb of Pasheda, but we didn’t have enough time. This is one spot where I would have liked to have spent much more time. We weren’t allowed to have cameras in the tombs, so I bought some postcards to remember the site.
From there we went to Nefertary Papyrus Institute. Aki, our guide, had them bring us a loaf of sun bread. This is like sourdough bread but baked in the sun. It was quite good. Then we had a demo of how papyrus is made which was quite informative. Bill bought three papyrus paintings. I went outside with Mike and looked at an old donkey water wheel.
We took the van back to the Nile where we were lucky enough to have some wind so we could ride a felucca on the Nile down to the Sonesta St George Hotel where we were spending the night. The ride was really quite pleasant and definitely unique. Aki got us checked in to the hotel. We were in room 509 which had a great balcony overlooking the Nile, the west bank and the Valleys of the Kings and Queens. We met for lunch at the Beban restaurant in the hotel overlooking the Nile. We had a tomato/mozzarella salad, tomato soup that tasted like Campbells, pizza with rocket/sauce/some cheese, a beef filet, mashed potato fingers, zucchini/carrot/broccoli, and an apple tart for dessert.
Everyone else left to go to Karnak Temple. I was about templed out, so I went to the room and sat on the balcony for 3 hours watching the activity on the Nile and river bank. There were ferries, feluccas, cruise ships, barges, birds, animals and herders on the other bank, and the wonderful call to prayers. I was a really happy camper. I especially liked the Egyptian/Mediterranean/hooded crow which we saw all over Egypt. It is a large and pretty black and gray crow.
After the group got back from Karnak, a few of them went down to the Winter Palace Hotel for a drink and snacks. Bill and were both tired, so we ordered up a burger from room service and hit the bed.
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