Hiking in Luxor

Guys, today was AWESOME! Susan, Lindsey and I got up really early and headed over to the West Bank again. We started at Medinet Habu, which was built by Ramses III to show his battle against the Sea Peoples (a group of nomads from somewhere up north- maybe Crete- who came down the Med. coast, ravaging anything the found). The place was almost completely deserted.

Me at the first pylon.

Trampling some Sea Peoples.

You can't see it very well, but the colors on the inner walls were breath-taking! And Ramses III really liked carving super deeply. If you blow up this picture, you should be able to see it. Amazing.

 After Habu, we moved over to Deir el-Medina, which was the village/tomb area of the workmen who built the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. You couldn't take pictures inside the tombs, but the 2 we went in were so pretty! Look up the tomb of Sennedjem (spellings may vary) on Google images to see how yellow everything is! After the tombs, we hiked up the gebel (mountainside) to get to Deir el-Bahri (Hatshepsut's mortuary temple).

View of Deir el-Medina from the gebel.

I'm queen of the gebel.

Looking down at Bahri (on left) and the destroyed temple of Montuhotep II (from the Middle Kingdom)

Stuart, I went way out on a ledge and almost fell off to get this one. I have a ton more from on top that I can give you once I get back to the US.

That's all for now, but there are a ton more photos to come once I get them from Susan's nice SLR camera (including one of us smiting each other at Medinet Habu and the smiley face we found while hiking). Now it's time to lay by the pool and relax before the Luxor Museum tonight!

- Hiker

Vacation Time!

Ok so I have no idea why this didn't post yesterday like I told it to! So sorry!! Guess you'll just have another day of double posts!

We're headed to Luxor this afternoon for Eid (well, since I'm posting this Friday, we actually left yesterday). Since I don't have much time to tell you what I did today, let’s talk a little about what Eid actually is. Eid is the end of Ramandan, the Muslim holiday month when the prophet Muhammad visited heaven. Apparently, this is when the revelations of God were given to man through the prophet Muhammad. They ‘celebrate’ the holiday month by fasting from sunrise to sunset and by being overly generous to the poor. It is technically forbidden to fast on the day of Eid, so there’s a big feast day (which day it falls on is determined by the lunar cycle, so Ramandan varies in length, and the actual feast day is only decided at the last minute).

In Egypt, the Eid is celebrated with an official three-day holiday, where schools, the government, and many businesses are closed. If you really, really wanted to find something comparable in Christianity, I guess I would say it’s like Lent, where you try to be on your best behavior during the fasting period, then be joyful and forgiving and happy on Easter (just don’t try to overlay any of the religious significance). The Eid feast day is treated like Easter, in that it is usually celebrated with families and everyone is dressed in their finest. There’s even a special Eid prayer service, and for the Sunnah Muslims, it is expected that wealthier families pay the Sadaqat-ul-fitr, a charity tax of sorts, to the needy before attending the service. The other 2 holiday days are used as holidays- to be spent as one pleases.

The worst part of Eid (well, to the Western sensibilities) is the slaughter of the goats. Really early in the morning on the feast day, just after the first call to prayer (which is at about 4:30 or so- I hear it every morning), families will slaughter a goat or cow if they can afford it to eat at the feast meal. In the provinces, this means a whole lot of scared, crying animals and a whole lot of blood running in the streets. People dip their hands in the blood and put bloody handprints all over the town for good luck. CSI: Egypt would have a tough time during Eid. Needless to say, none of us really wanted to be around in Edfu when this was going on, hence why we escaped. While they’ll do the slaughtering in Luxor as well, it’s usually separated from the tourist areas.

Eid Mubarak (“blessed Eid”), everyone!

- Muslim Theologian (or at least I play one on the internet)