Day 90 (Part 1) - Luxor!

Luxor!

We arrived a day early in Safaga, Egypt, due to the high rate of speed that the Captain ran to stay ahead of any potential pirates.  I know that many of you may think this is an exaggeration, but when you see the razor wire strung on your ship, the 24/7 watch on your deck, the practice sessions for crew, with water cannon etc, you understand this is a real threat.  Once through the area, we learned that south of us, 3 freighters had been captured by pirates and their crew were being tortured.  This horrible situation is big business for these animals who last year raked in $240 million.  Needless to say, with this kind of money, all the bad guys, like Al Quaeda, are involved in trading hostages.  Unfortunately, the world has not taken it seriously, as the small number of "lowly" crew on these freighters do not command enough international outrage.  As we have said, if a passenger ship or an airplane was taken, there would be a huge attempt to end this situation.    We were so glad to have the 6 days at sea, and to have made it safely through these waters.  Now whether Egypt is a safe haven is another matter. 

Safaga is a very busy port, and when we arrived in the heat of the late day, we were surprised to see the mountains onshore.  Although we were not allowed off of the ship, unless we were taking the HAL overland to Luxor a day early. We were not, so we stayed on the ship until very early the next morning.  

So early the next morning, we were transported by bus, with our own security guard and a military/police escort for our convoy.  It didn't take long for us to be into the desert - about 5 minutes.  Our guide explained that we needed the police because we were going through the desert.  After 2 days in Egypt, it is obvious that tourism is way down, they are nervous about their own political stability, and that corruption is rampant.  The only traffic on the road, other than us, was dozens of huge transport trucks carrying goods from the port - double pups, and little one man trucks loaded to the brim. It made for a dangerous drive in itself, as the road is narrow and everyone is driving at a great speed to get through the long desert and deserted road. 

Once through the desert we  passed through many many small villages, military checkpoints,  and jolts of speed bumps.  We were frankly appalled at the primitive and obvious poverty-stricken lot of the Egyptian people that we saw on this journey.  First of all there are very very few cars and few motorcycles.  There are  bicycles, but more donkeys and wooden carts, and people walking.  The cars you see wouldn't be allowed on the streets at home.  I saw a Datsun truck - and another small pickup full of people, with no windshield.  

Luxor sits in the Nile River valley and it is largely farmland - mostly sugar cane which is a nasty, dirty, tough crop.  We saw wagon loads of cane.  They import more sugar (beet sugar) than they export.  Our guide told us that we would be shocked at how time had stood still as the farmers still use implements that have been used for thousands of years.  He was right - we never saw even one tractor - only water buffalo and hand labour everywhere.  There are large irrigation canals that are polluted and have a deadly parasitic worm, as it is standing water, that infects the livers of the farmers.  

Most of the very humble homes remain unfinished in this area, and our guide gave us two reasons: the rebar in the top story awaits the building of another level for the son and his bride, as he must provide a home before marriage, and also if your home is unfinished you may avoid paying taxes.  These reasons may well be true, but given the poverty we saw, lack of funds would have to figure into this picture as well.  The single lightbulbs in the rooms allowed us  a glimpse into the rudimentary homes as we passed by.  Many were no more than lean too's and others had no roof - which is understandable as it doesn't really rain in Egypt.

The other impression was the fact that this is so obviously a male society - we saw maybe 2 women on our entire drive and our guide told us this was true of this part of Egypt.  All the men wear the long caftan style dress because it is cooler.  We would find the heat unbearable the next day so this made sense to us.  The women in this area wear black.  As in other ports we have visited, many of the men waved to us as we passed.  This long drive had us gaping in disbelief the entire way. 

Finally we arrived in Luxor, a city of 150,000 and today we will see the  tombs in the Valley of the Kings, Queen Hatshepsut's mortuary temple and Karnak temple! 

The major feature was the Karnak Temple which was under construction for over 2000 years - each Pharaoh adding his own imprint, and finally  even the Christians got in the act.  The Avenue of Ram Headed Sphinxes leads to the temple entrance and the Hypostyle Hall - a colonnade featuring 134 immense and richly decorated columns.  The complex also boasts the Obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut, the Temple of Amen-Re, and the Sacred Lake. 

We went to the Luxor Museum to have lunch then we had a boat ride across the Nile River.