Luxor - December 24, 2010

Today was our last day in Luxor.  Wayne was feeling a bit better today so came with us to Karnack Temple; what a neat place.  There were many good examples of carvings, paintings and statutes still left, considering it had a major flood through it (Picture of Wayne pointing to the flood line).

There were many pillars, which we learnt held up the stone roof.  They were all evenly spaced with cross pieces and then at one time a cover stone on top.  They had also built sections that would let in the light and air (2nd picture below).

Samantha is pointing to another example of their calander.  The kids are in front of a famous scarab beetle statue.  It is believed that if you walk around it 7 times you will have good luck.

Later that afternoon we went on a felucca (traditional sailboat) cruise. Unfortunately there was no wind.  So the kids were put to work while the adults sat and enjoyed the ride (Wayne stayed back at the hotel to recoup).  The kids had great fun rowing the felucca with their planks of wood.  The neat thing about the feluccas are that they have a square sail and they are not allowed to put a motor on it.  So we had a bit of a tow at the start and then it was all kid power :)

If you could look past all the garbage on the shore and in the water, it was really quite pretty.

Once back at our hotel we had a bit of time before we all met for our last supper together as a tour group.  In that time we decided to go for a quick look around Luxor temple.  It was very cool to see at night.  This is where there is one obelisk and the other one is in the center of the Place de la Concorde in Paris (we have pictures of it from our trip last summer).  It is cool to say we have seen both; on two continents.  The sphinxes were at one time on both sides of the road and extended all the way from Luxor temple to Karnack temple.

Once done our walk about the temple we met for supper and got to see some belly dancing, which was neat.  After supper we collected our luggage and headed off to the train station.  We had a little Christmas gift exchange amongst the kids at the train station, which was a lot of fun.  Once on the train Samantha hung up her drawing of a Christmas tree she had brought from Abu Dhabi so that Santa could find us as we click-clacked our way along the slowly meandering Nile.