Farewell to Cairo and Hello Karnak Temple

 After long days of sightseeing in Cairo, followed by a way early wake up call, we were on our way to the Cairo Airport at 6 am to catch a flight to Luxor and board the MS Antares for a seven-day cruise on the Nile River. I was too sleepy to take an airport photo.

Another photo that I didn’t get was a snapshot of the truly insane chaos of traffic in Cairo.  Cars, pedestrians, scooters, donkey carts and tour buses share the same narrow lanes of roadway in an oddly unspoken and graceful dance. Who needs a pedestrian crosswalk or traffic light when you have a horn!

I felt pretty safe, but it’s definitely culture shock to see machine gun toting police on the street corners. There are armed but friendly (to us) security guards on the Viking tour buses who help fend of over zealous souvenir vendors.

Moving on from Cairo, we landed in Luxor and were in the bus and on our way to Karnak Temple by 9:30.  Karnak is a huge ancient temple dedicated to the deities Amun, Mut and Khonsu.


The Goddess Mut had some pretty good ideas.  If I get a spare moment I’m going to read the whole list!


Karnak Temple is a hugely popular tourist destination.  It’s hard to get pictures without a foreground Forest of tourists.

On Wednesday we admired the giant sphinx.  Thursday we encountered hundreds of moderately sized ram headed sphinxes that once guard the six-mile route from Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple.


We finally board our ship  and completed the safety drill. We are a bit giddy from the early wake up call.
 

Sunset on the Nile.

We end this very long day with a stroll through Luxor Temple at night.




Viking’s Nile Cruise is not for sissies!  We finished this 18-hour Thursday and and I’m steeling myself for a 4 am wake up call on Friday morning.

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