Egypt vacation, part four

Here are some more Egypt trip photos.

During our cruise down the Nile, we saw men in small rowboats offer their wares to cruise boat denizens by tossing them way up onto the top deck. The cruisers examine the merchandise, and if they like it, they toss down some money. Otherwise they throw back the goods.





It was not unusual to see donkey-pulled carts.



In Edfu we docked near this shop, which stayed open after dark.



Here's Edfu temple:







Apparently the pharoahs enjoyed root beer floats.



Walking like an Egyptian:



Sitting in contemplation next to the Nile:



Local transport:



Kom Ombo temple is a double temple dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile-headed god, and Horus, the falcon-headed god.







Near Aswan is Philae Temple, which was relocated from its original site due to flooding following the construction of Aswan High Dam.





Say "cheese!"



Thanks for taking the photo, sir.



What a beautiful place Philae is.

Egypt vacation, part one

We just got back from a wonderful trip to Egypt. Although my expectations were fairly high, they were surpasssed. I loved the place.

We had been wanting to visit the land of the pyramids for years, but now seemed like the perfect time to go, since a couple of friends recently moved to Cairo, and another friend who wanted to see us was going to Egypt for a work thing and was tacking time on the end for a vacation.

After a day of recovering from a red-eye flight to Cairo, four of us headed out to Luxor. First stop, Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens, interestingly painted and carved tombs of royalty. Alas, photos were not allowed inside the tombs there, so we don't have pictures to share with you. However, we do have photos of the next stop, the Temple of Hatshepsut.



Inside were paintings of Queen Hatshepsut, various gods and goddesses, and below, offerings to those gods and goddesses. The plants on the right resemble art nouveau design to me.



There were lots of other tourists there, mainly Europeans.



This chapel in the temple is dedicated to the goddess Hathor.



Heiroglyphs look cool, but we don't know what they say.



These statues depict Queen Hatshepsut as pharoah. According to our excellent guide, Ayman, Hatshepsut was the only woman to rule as pharoah, and sometimes she is depicted as a man to show that she ruled just as men did.



More coming soon...