28/01/19 Luxor is the old capital of Egypt,
where we can visit the Karnak temple of God Emen Râ and its wife and son.
Karnak and Luxor used to be connected by the sphynx alley but the alley is no
longer visible. In 1836 one of the obelisks of the temple was given to Paris
(place de la Concorde) as a gift.
The impressive temple from 2000BC is built over 16 acres of land and is made of
135 pylons representing the 134 states of ancient Egypt, all having their own
God.
Alexander the Great conquered and moved the capital to Alexandria using Karnak
workers which explains why the site has unfinished work.
In the afternoon we stopped by a papyrus workshop where we learned about the
fabrication process. Papyrus is a plant similar to reed. They cut it into thin
slices that are pressed to get thiner. The ribbons are then layered and covered
under a press machine for 6 days for white papyrus or longer for brown papyrus.
For dinner, we were invited to a Nubian diner. Nubia (from Noba: gold) is the
region in the South of Aswan and North of Sudan. A family who lives in the
Nubian traditions (they have a crocodile alive next to their front door to
bring them luck) welcomed us at their table.
They live in pretty poor and simple conditions but they are really friendly and
their food was delicious. The housewife cooked all day for the group and stayed
a bit longer after dinner to make some henna tattoos on the hands of the girls
in our group. She learned English by herself on Internet (the only modern part
of their life) so she was happy to answer a few questions about her traditions.
We reached their house with a little boat and on the way back, a group of
Nubians played some music for us on board. One song in particular got stuck in
our heads and we kept singing it for the next few days.
29/01/19 We woke up at 3.30am (!) to be the first at the Abu Simbel temple.
They open the highway at 5am so we tried to avoid the crowd. The hotel made us
breakfast boxes to take away that we ate on the bus.
Abu Simbel has the temple of King Ramses the Great and a smaller one he made
for Queen Nefertari. They are carved in the rock, not built on the ground like
the other temples. Due to the flooding and the construction of a dam nearby,
the temples have been moved by 300m to be saved. The temple was cut into 1065
pieces and rebuilt exactly the same.
Later the bus stopped on the highway for us to observe a mirage.
The Nile crosses 9 countries and is the longest river in the world.
Our next stop is the Philae island temple made for the Goddess of Motherhood
Isis. This temple was also cut in pieces (40000) and moved in 8 years to be
finished in 1980 to avoid being flooded.
Isis was married to Osiris and Osiris was killed by his brother Seth, who
tricked him with a sarcophagus he built himself. Anyone could come and try the
new sarcophagus he made. If it fitted you you could keep it. When Osiris tried
it, Seth locked him up inside and sent the sarcophagus away on the Nile. Isis
transformed herself into a bird trying to find her husband. Osiris was brought
back to life but Seth killed him again and this time cut him into 14 pieces
that were hidden all over Egypt. He could only be brought back to life if his
body was complete, and Isis could only find 13 of them. Horus, son of Isis and
Osiris wished to have his uncle Seth dead.
After Philae temple, we took our luggage and came on board the Felucca, a sail
boat for a 2 nights cruise on the Nile.
The deck was covered with mattresses and we all received a pillow and some
blankets. They created a roof with a giant sheet of colourful fabric to protect
us from the sun. We left our shoes in a bin before boarding and we used our
sleeping bags at
