20250308 Saturday March 8, 2025 Aswan High Dam and Abu Simbel Temples

20250308 Saturday March 8, 2025 Aswan High Dam and Abu Simbel Temples

The ship tied up at its berth in Aswan last night after dark.  When we pulled aside the curtains this morning, we were greeted with beautiful and peaceful view of the early sun’s rays hitting the distant mountains beyond the lush vegetation of the west bank of the Nile across from us.  There is, however, evidence of the city of Aswan in the form of occasional bits of floating trash floating down the otherwise clear river. 

Passengers had a choice between taking a flight to Abu Simbel today, or staying behind to tour the Aswan High Dam and take a felucca ride to the classic Cataract Hotel made famous by Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile.  There was some grumbling amongst some of the passengers that it wasn’t possible to both see Abu Simbel and the Cataract Hotel in one cruise trip, but there was ample free time in Aswan for people who really wanted to see the Cataract Hotel to do so on their own in the evening via taxi.  We chose to fly to Abu Simbel.  

Our tour bus made a stop atop the Aswan High Dam so we could take pictures and read some of the informational boards.  There are actually two dams in Aswan.  The first was built in the late 19th century by the British.  The design was unique in having a great number of spillways that helped flush silt through the dam.  But this was subject to several episodes of overflow due to inadequate capacity.  The new Aswan High Dam was completed in 1970.  This was a Soviet development project.  There wasn’t that much to see since there were no open spillways.  There are supposedly thousands of Nile river crocodile in the lake and river above this dam, but none below.  The same holds true for hippos.  We saw neither in Nassar Lake.  

The airports in Aswan and Abu Simbel are both small, and virtual copies of each other.  Security is very tight for a domestic flight.  We had to go through two separate screenings in which our bags were X-rayed and we walked through metal detectors and got frisked.  Some of us also had to do a whole body scan.  The procedure was then repeated a second time, only with shoes off the second time.  But it didn’t seem to take all that long. It was a good thing our Viking handlers told us just what to expect of the security screening procedures.

We boarded a Bombardier turboprop with the same Petroleum Air Services logo on the side.  From the air, we could see circular green patches in the desert, center pivot irrigation technology imported from the USA. Nassar Lake behind the Aswan High Dam is huge, stretching as far as the eye could see, even at 10,000’.  There are thousands of tiny random islands and the surrounding desert is filled with eroded rocky outcroppings with sand filled drainages.

  
The flight was less than an hour and everyone on the flight was with our Viking tour.  The plane actually waited for us on the tarmac while we were off touring.  Around the airport in the distance were badlands formations that looked like they could have been pyramids, but we were assured they were natural formations.

It is a relatively short bus ride to the Abu Simbel site from the airport.  The parking lot is situated behind the temples so all you can see as you approach the temples is their backside, which is just a manmade mountain of rubble.  Under that mountain lies a concrete and steel dome protecting the chambers of the Abu Simbel temples.

Between the parking lot and temple entrance is a mall of shops, so you have to run the vendor gauntlet going to and from the temples, but we are now seasoned pros.  

As you follow the walkway from the ticket entrance towards the front of the temples, you can see Lake Nassar about a quarter of a mile away. Originally, the temples sat literally at the Nile’s edge.

  
When the Aswan High dam was built, it drowned a huge amount of land.  This included the original site of the Abu Simbel temples.  Apparently, the Egyptian government at the time wasn’t concerned about preserving cultural heritage sites, but an international outcry eventually lead to a huge project to literally move an entire mountain about 200’ uphill from its original site.  This required cutting the sculptures and surrounding limestone mountain into huge blocks, moving them uphill, reconstructing the temples, and then finishing the fake mountainside.  While that may seem like a fair bit of work, it was totally worth it because these temples built by Rameses II are quite spectacular works of monolithic architecture.

  
There are interesting details about how the individuals portrayed as statues in front of and within the temple are depicted.  There are 4 massive 66’ tall seated statues of Rameses II. At his feet and up to his knees are much smaller statues depicting his wife and some of his more prominent children.  One of the seated statues lost its head and torso in an earthquake.  When the temple was moved in 1970, although the head and torso could potentially have been restored, they were positioned in a jumble at his feet, exactly as they were originally found relative to his feet.

In the front of the temple, there is a hall of round columns fronted by a row of statues of Rameses II diefied in the shape of Osiris.  The walls depict several military campaigns including the Battle of Kadesh, which resulted in the first negotiated peace treaty in recorded history. Two spies were within the ranks of his soldiers, and when they were discovered, things didn’t end well for them.  They are depicted in a scene surrounded by other soldiers delivering military justice.  Another scene relates to a myth how they rode into an ambush. When Ramesses II prayed to the gods for help, they gave him an extra set of arms so that he could counterattack using two bows simultaneously from his chariot.

  
There are storage rooms with depictions of various offerings to a plethora of gods on the walls like Egyptian comic strips but vividly carved and painted onto the walls. 
The hall of round columns leads into a second smaller hall with square columns.  This also has storage rooms radiating off to the sides.  The carvings here are dedicated to showing Ramesses II and his favorite wife Nefertari with the sacred boats of Amun and Ra-Horakthy.

In the back of the room, there is a small chamber, the sanctuary, in which sit 4 figures. The one on the furthest left is Ra-Horakhty.  Seated next to it are statues of the diefied King Ramesses II and the gods Amun Ra and Ptah.  During the spring and fall equinoxes, the light of the rising sun illuminated just the 3 statues on the right, while Ra-Horakhty remains perpetually in the dark.

  
We were very fortunate to have perfect weather and relatively few other visitors at the time that we toured the temples.  Our private charter flight apparently arrived in Abu Simbel hours before the regularly scheduled commercial flights with their bus loads of tourists.

  
Adjacent to the Temple of Ramses II is the Temple of Nefetari, which is a similarly monolithic temple carved out of the solid stone mountain, and also relocated from the lower elevation to its current relative position.  This Temple has colossal statues of Ramses II and Nefetari.  As a symbol of how much Ramses II loved Nefetari, there are 4 sculptures of Ramses II and 2 of Nefetari, and they are all the same size. Usually, women would be depicted only knee high to the Pharaoh.

  
Inside the Temple of Nefetari is a front hall with six Pillars bearing the head of Hathor, the namesake of our Viking Nile ship.  There are carvings depicting Ramses II smiting his enemies before Ra-Harakhte and Amun-Ra, while others depict Rameses and Nefetari making offerings to the gods.  In the holy of holies, there is a statue of Hathor, although it is significantly degraded by the ages.

  
Both of these temples are spectacular in their scale, especially considering they were carved out of standing solid sandstone mountains, and then relocated nearly 3000 years after they were originally carved into the mountain.

  
We did have to repeat the double security gauntlet at Abu Simbel airport but we were old hands at it by then.  We got back to the ship at 4pm for a late lunch.  They did have potato chips, fig bars, bananas and cookies, as well as sodas and water on the Abu Simbel buses.  The potato chips were Lays brand, but made in Egypt.  These bags seem to have been made for airlines because each bag only contained maybe a dozen potato chips.  But we did have a full lunch service in the dining room for everyone that had gone to Abu Simbel.

There was an early evening Viking future cruises pitch which we chose to nap through, followed by our daily briefing.  Tomorrow we will be visiting a Nubian household and going for a motor boat ride among the islands in the Nile around the first cataract and to the Temple of Philae which was also relocated due to flooding from the High Aswan dam.

Dinner was at 7pm.  Since we had eaten lunch at 4pm, most people weren’t all that hungry, but we did all enjoy a pistachio cake dessert.

20250307 Friday, March 7, 2025. Esna Temple And Galabeya Shopping

20250307 Friday, March 7, 2025. Esna Temple

The ship tied up in Esna while we were being entertained by the Twirling Dervish last night.  This time the ship tied up on its starboard side, so when we awoke in the morning and pulled back the shades, we could see the river front docking site with the ship’s gangplank extended to shore just aft of our stateroom position.  The ship ties up in secure areas with Tourism Police guarding access to the river front docking sites for river cruise ships.  

During breakfast we could see some vendors in a row boat paddling up and down the river side of the ship hoping to make a sale, but because we were a deck above the waterline and completely enclosed by glass, there was little opportunity for them to make a sale at that moment.

After breakfast, we headed off the ship for a tour of the Esna Temple, which was a very short 1 block walk from where the ship was tied up.  Cleverly, the lane that connected the river cruise ship docking area to the temple is designated Esna City Touristic Bazaar.  It was one of the most intense vendor gauntlet that we have run into, but the same rules applied and our Viking handlers did their best to put us in a stronger position in negotiations for purchases.  This included briefing us on target pricing for various things we might want to buy, and also tactics that the vendors will try to employ to pressure buyers to part with more money than necessary.  

The Esna Temple is relatively small compared with others we have been seeing, and is surrounded by pretty dense ramshackle development.  However as excavation of the temple site has revealed adjacent structures, the government has been buying out land owners or squatters and relocating them so that many of the ramshackle buildings surrounding the temple look even more ramshackle due to their being abandoned buildings awaiting demolition as excavation expands from the current temple grounds.  

Many of the temples bear evidence of repeated defacement.  In most cases, this involves chiseling off of faces and other exposed body parts of carvings on these structures.  Over the millennia, there have been many rationale for this as belief systems evolve and different belief systems come to be in possession of and control of these ancient sites. Perhaps it is fortunately that the Nile and the surrounding desert have had the tendency to bury ancient structures, preserving them from the reach of men.  This temple has a lot of references to Khnum, a god with powers related to creation and rebirth.  Khnum is often depicted as a ram’s head on a human body, or as a ram in its animal form.  There are myths that attribute man’s creation to Khnum molding man out of clay and adding the attributes of spirit and life before inserting this creation into the womb.  

About half of the front of this temple is encased in scaffolding as workers are cleaning and restoring it.  They have also hung netting to discourage pigeons because bird droppings are highly corrosive to the paints used in the temple, and a key source of degradation of the temple’s decorations.  The front of the temple is a hypostyle hall of columns which are elaborately decorated surrounded by high walls and a sold ceiling which is also very elaborately decorated.  It is notable that this ceiling has depictions of Nut and also of the Zodiac symbols much like those seen in the Dandarah Temple.  Much of the colors are preserved on the upper portions of the columns and ceiling, and although many of the figures are defaced, there are untouched figures high on the walls and columns.  Relative to the other temples we have seen, this one was pretty easily manageable.  

Returning from the temple to the ship would prove to be the real adventure for today.  Although Viking does not have “Formal Nights” requiring passengers to dress up, they do have a “Taste of Egypt & Galabeya Evening” in which passengers are encouraged to dress like an Egyptian.  For most, this required acquiring Egyptian outfits in a market, and the market at Esna has been touted as the best place to do so because of selection, prices and competition.  Our Viking handlers were keeping an eye out for us, but today was a bit like a final practical examination on our “How to negotiate like an Egyptian 101” course.  

We were given target pricing for various garments, but some did vary considerably depending on quality and whether they were made in Egypt or Chinese knock offs.  We knew of very few people who actually managed to successfully haggle vendors all the way down to the target pricing, but I don’t think we got taken too badly.  Janet managed to get a high quality Galabeya  for $23, haggling down from over $100, while Ben managed to get his Galabeya along with a headscarf for the same price, also haggling down from $85 for just the Galabeya and getting the headscarf thrown in.  

The ship pushed off from Esna and continued sailing on the Nile under perfect weather conditions.  As the ship was heading upstream, there was a tailwind so there was not much wind on the upper decks.  We saw streams of other river cruise ships heading the opposite direction, racing each other to the locks that we had traversed last night.  The ship hosted a sail away cocktails hour with complementary cocktails mixed with Egyptian spirits.  We had Pina Coladas made with Egyptian rum. Since sugar cane is a primary agricultural product of the Nile Valley, rum is a natural local product.  

After lunch, we some down time to relax and enjoy the sailing.  Cruising the Nile is quite pleasant and interesting.  Even the view from our waterline window has proven to be quite interesting as it puts us at eye level with the fishermen and vendors in their row boats.  The only disadvantage we have discovered is Ben can’t just step outside onto the veranda to apply spray on sunscreen or bug spray, and has to do so out in the hallway outside the stateroom.

The afternoon kept us busy.  There was a cooking class in which Chef Janet got to help make falafels, earning herself a chef’s hat and Viking Cooking School Apron souvenir.  Then we had afternoon tea.  We are happy to report that the scones on the Viking Hathor are up to our high standards.

Fatma presented a lecture on Medicine in Ancient Egypt which was quite interesting.  Although most people refer to Hippocrates as the father of modern medicine, he certainly got a lot of his medical knowledge from medical paparuses.  We learned today that the modern day Rx symbol for medication prescriptions actually comes from the simplified hieroglyph for the Eye of Horus.  

The practice of mummification may have given ancient Egyptians a leg up on developing modern medicine because they literally autopsied everyone in the process of mummification, so the saw what was normal and pathological anatomy.  
There was a slide on circumcision, which in ancient Egyptian times, was done at puberty, and with flint knives since the only metal available at that time was copper, which doesn’t hold a cutting edge. Fatma also described the invention of contraceptive sponges by ancient Egyptians.  These were impregnated with various ingredients, although she did not mention crocodile dung to be among them.  
After the medical lecture, there was a formal wheel house tour and Q&A session with the Captain.  Manal had to serve as translator because our Captain is Egyptian.  Unlike in the airline industry, ship captains in Egypt have to be fluent only in Arabic.  It is astounding to Ben that there wasn’t a huge chart plotter with multiple GPS back ups all over the wheel house.  The captain and his pilots know the river like the backs of their hands from years and years of experience.  Nautical charts can’t be relied upon in river systems because sand banks and river bottoms can change rapidly, so being able to read the river is more important.

We got changed into our new Egyptian outfits and went to dinner.  It was fun to see everyone in their Egyptian garb.  Apparently, there is no such thing as cultural misappropriation here.  The dinner was served family style and featured many of the same foods that were featured in the restaurant in Cairo, but the Viking versions were both more flavorful and presented much more nicely.  For as good as it was, Egyptian cuisine is probably only going to rank slightly above the UK for deliciousness.  
After dinner, a group of Nubian dancers put on a performance. They were an all male group with 3 musicians and 4 dancers.  The dancing was much less structured and involved a lot of audience participation.  Unfortunately, where we sat, the performers had their backs turned towards us for more than 90% of the performance.   There were several passengers who did bring their A game to their audience participation, which did make the performance more interesting to watch, particularly since some people whom we have met on the ship who came across as being very reserved turned out to be party animals when put on stage.

The ship motored through the evening into Aswan.  We should be docked in Aswan when we wake up tomorrow.  After breakfast, we will leave the ship and fly to Abu Simbel for an all day excursion.  Although we will have to go through some rigid airport security both ways, our guides say it will all be worth it.  So we’ll hit the sack early.

20250306 Thursday, March 6, 2025 Valley of the Kings and Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

20250306 Thursday, March 6, 2025 Valley of the Kings and Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

It was nice to be able to “sleep in” until 6:15am.  We did have to have breakfast and be ready to get off the ship at 8am for today’s tours.  We had breakfast in the restaurant which was a buffet with an omelet/egg station.  Janet had her eggs Benedict and unlike on Princess, they only give you one poached egg on one half an English muffin, instead of two.  Ben just went for the usual breakfast buffet items.  The ship must have a piping hot grill that they do their tomatoes and mushrooms on because they have a smoky flavor.  They also had chicken and beef sausages that looked like the ones at the hotel, but somehow tasted just a little bit better.  Still not as good as Isernio’s back home.  

We had perfect weather for our Tomb Raiders excursion.  The temperature was around 70 with a light breeze and clear skies.  The Valley of the Kings is a very busy place, but Fatma said we were very fortunate regarding the size of today’s crowds.  We were never at all rushed or uncomfortable. It could have been like the Vatican, which was the most horrible crowd experience we have ever had.  
The first tomb we entered was KV2: Rameses IV.  It is fortunate that these tombs were not nearly as difficult to get into and out of as the first one we went into in Giza.  Ben’s quadriceps were sore until yesterday from that.  While these tombs still have a steep incline of 20-30˚ in places, the passages are at least 7-8’ tall so no stooping is required, and there are handrails and cross treadles on the floor in the steeper sections.  

The passages leading into the tombs are elaborately decorated and painted.  There are lots of scenes from the Book of the Dead, which is the Egyptian’s manual on how to make it in the afterworld. We are getting to be able to recognize some familiar faces, like Hathor, Osiris, Isis, Anubis, Horus and Nut.  We have also learned to recognize the Pharaoh in these scenes by the presence of their cartouches, which are situated diagonally from their face.  

Rameses IV was one of the last Pharaohs, and as such, his tomb was not hidden.  It was a tourist site in medieval times, and as such, there is Greek and Roman graffiti on the walls near the entrance. 

Depending on the quality of the stone encountered as workers tunneled into the mountain, decorations were carved into the wall where the stone was fine enough to be carved, polished and then painted.  Areas that couldn’t be carved could be plastered, inscribed and then painted. 

We stopped by KV2: Son of Rameses II but didn’t go inside.  It is not open to the public, but had an interesting story in which our guide Fatma had personal experiences.  KV2 was one of the earliest tombs to be explored by James Burton in 1825 and then again in 1902 by Howard Carter during his search for Tutankhamun’s, but both men only found it to contain two empty and undecorated rooms.  Howard Carter ended up using it as a dump site as he excavated other sites in his search for Tutankhamun’s tomb.  In 1995, an archeologist Kent Weeks re-excavated it as part of the Theben Mapping project.  After clearing the two rooms described by Burton and Carter, he probed a bit further and discovered there were other chambers beyond the known walls.  As a matter of fact, there were over 100 additional rooms that had laid undiscovered beyond the apparent dead end wall.  Fatma got to work closely with Professor Weeks during her studies of archeology and had the opportunity to do so largely through a clerical mistake.  During her initial introduction to work with him, someone with her same name, but a much older professor was supposed to have been summoned to the site. But they developed a close working relationship and she remained in the position even after the mistake was realized.  What Indiana Jones character wouldn’t prefer to work with a young attractive female student rather than an old worn out professor anyways?  

Next, we descended into King Tutankhamun’s tomb.  This is actually one of the smallest tombs discovered in the Valley of the Kings.  Its fame is more related to Howard Carter’s finding it largely unlooted, and his efforts to catalog and preserve the finds rather than selling them off.  It is thought that the tomb was actually intended for someone much lower in social status than Pharaoh but his tomb was appropriated due to Tutankhamun’s untimely death.  Tutankhamun’s actual mummy resides in the tomb, although in a glass oxygen free enclosure in the antechamber rather than within his original resting place inside a solid gold casket nestled within several other caskets in the stone sarcophagus.  We saw those items at the Egyptian Museum earlier in the trip.

Next, we descended into KV17, the tomb of Seti I.  In this tomb, you could see an incomplete room where the decorations were sketched out and marked with corrections before inscription or carving.  The outlines to be sculpted were marked in black while corrections were noted in red.  This tomb required descending 200’, or about the same height as it would be to climb Khufu’s great pyramid in Giza.  Surprisingly, as we descended, it got warmer, not cooler.  At the center of the tomb, it was probably 80˚F.  There were two chambers with columns, while the central tomb had a ceiling of nearly 30’ with elaborate decorations on the ceiling.

The last tomb we visited in the Valley of the Kings was KV6- Rameses IX.  He was clearly concerned about maintaining his virility in the afterlife as he was depicted with an impressive erection, which was chiseled off at some later point in time.  
Our next stop was at the house of Howard Carter which was just outside the entrance to the Valley of the Kings.  This had some things like his photography equipment, and desk with typewriter.  

Between the Valley of the Kings and the Nile river are a strip of temples.  The most striking one is the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut.  This looks pretty modern for its symmetry and simplicity, but is a very imposing and prominent structure. We had seen this easily from the air in the hot air balloon.  From the balloon, it looked big enough, but there was no way to appreciate the human scale of it.  When you are walking up the ramps, this becomes quite apparent.  Much of the artwork in this temple has weathered and aged, but some parts were restored recently.  Within the complex, there are frequent references to Hathor with depictions both as a cow and as a woman with cow horns.  She is god associated with nurturing and maternity. And she happens to be the namesake for our ship.  Hatshepsut is one of several interesting women from the time of the Pharaohs.  She did rule as a Pharaoh but was frequently depicted and referred to as a male, complete with ceremonial beard.  It is believed that she had a close relationship with a tutor of her children, who also happened to end up as the architect of her Mortuary Temple. 

 
Heading back to the ship, we passed the ruins of temples including the Ramesseum, which we had also seen from the air, and had a brief photo stop at the Colossi of Memnon.  These were carved from red granite that was quarried from near the present site of the Cairo Airport.  All that stone had to make it 650km upstream.

We were glad to reboard the ship and have lunch as the ship pushed off and sailed to Esna .  Janet attended a backgammon activity while Ben blogged.  

We went through a small lock just  as the sun was setting.  We had a relaxing and very pleasant afternoon and evening.  When we came out of the lock, a rowboat with two men rowed out in front of the ship hawking blankets and table cloths.  They threw some up onto the ship’s deck.  Apparently there was a container wrapped in the item they were hoping to sell that could be tossed back to them in exchange for the item.  As the ship pulled out of the lock, they wrapped a line around one of the ship’s fenders and basically surfed in the ship’s bow wake as they continued to try to sell items to passengers on the ship.

We didn’t stick around too long for that because they had a Viking Explorer Society meeting, which basically is a cocktail hour for past Viking cruisers.  This was our one chance to get free cocktails.  We received tiny plastic scarabs as a token of their appreciation and commemorating our Nile Voyage.  The ship sailed through a second lock and then tied up on the riverfront of Esna while we dined. 

The dinner menus feature local Egyptian cuisine, in addition to more usual items. Janet went for a fancy chicken breast, while Ben opted for their Rib-Eye steak.  
After dinner, a local entertainer came aboard from Esna to demonstrate Egypt’s version of a twirling Dervish.  It was amazing how he could spin for nearly 20 minutes non-stop.  He had a few tricks up his sleeves with props including what looked like tambourines, and skirts that lit up and could be twirled overhead.  

Tomorrow, we will head ashore to visit a local temple in Esna, and also do some shopping.  Tomorrow night will be “Dress like an Egyptian” night.  We have certainly been bombarded by vendors selling t-shirts and dresses.  Our guides tell us we should be able to pick up a galabeya for $10-20 US depending on the quality.  These are pretty much unisex, although most of the men we have seen in the Egyptian countryside wear them.  They can be drab but highly functional.  A galabeya would certainly be easier to come by than a King Tut outfit for tomorrow night,

20250305 Wednesday, March 5, 2025 Hot Air Balloon ride over Western Thebes, Nile River Cruising to Qena

20250305 Wednesday, March 5, 2025 Hot Air Balloon ride over Western Thebes, Nile River Cruising to Qena, Dandarah Temple of Hathor, Cruising back to Luxor

Although we have been getting up spontaneously between 3-4:30am because of our jet lag, when you have to get up for a specific reason, it seems harder to convince ourselves to actually pop up out of bed and get dressed.  We’re were in the lobby at 4:15am for coffee and pastries before being bundled into the buses to do our hot air balloon ride on the West Bank of the Nile.  The bus took us to a water taxi pier where we all got shuttled over to the West Bank of the Nile.  There, we got further divided up into minivans which then drove us to a large field in the dark.  

We had no idea what to expect but from out of nowhere, children could be seen through the minivan windows with trinkets to sell or birds to take pictures with.  These kids had to get up before sunrise to try to make a little money before school, apparently.  As the sun rose, we could begin to see that there were dozens of balloons laid out around this very large open area, and dozens of minivans full of tourists who were going for balloon rides.  

We had to wait a long time for authorities to signal that it was safe to go aloft.  They initially sent a pair of helium balloons aloft and we curiously watched them first float to the west, and then turn around and head back eastward overhead.  Then all of a sudden, all the balloon handlers sprung into action, firing up really loud gas powered fans to begin inflating the balloons.  Once they began to fill up, they would shoot huge gas flames into the balloons.  The baskets attached to the balloons were each about the same size as the minivans we arrived in, and were laying on their sides.  Once the balloons started to transition from horizontal to vertical, this pulled the baskets upright and a dozen or so balloon handlers then manned tethered lines and assisted passengers into the baskets.  

The baskets were divided up into compartments that were about 45” square, and into each basket, they had 3 passengers climb in.  It was tight but not uncomfortable.  In total, each balloon carried 24 passengers aloft. Janet and Ben ended up in compartments on opposite sides of the balloon, but this allowed us to see out of both sides of the balloon basket.  

The balloon handler sat in a central compartment surrounded by huge propane gas cylinders and 4 large overhead burners that created the hot air for lift.  The flames from these burners shoot 6-10’ high into the balloons.  When the burners are fired up, we really appreciated the fact that there was a sheet of metal above our heads so our hair wouldn’t get singed.  The roar of the flames is really something to be experienced.  

The sensation of lifting in the balloons is quite gentle and it was fascinating to see how the balloon operators had figured out the air currents in this area allowed them to basically circle around several temples on the West Bank of the Nile including the Ramesseum, which is a ruin which is being actively excavated, and the highly recognizable temple of Hatshepsut at the foot of the mountains that form the Valley of the Kings.  We didn’t actually fly over the Valley of the Kings or get high enough to see into it, but mostly hovered and circled around the complex of temples between the Nile and the Valley of the kings.  

When the balloons gain elevation, the balloons drift to the west and south, but when they descend, they head east and north, so it is possible to drive the balloons with some precision.  In addition, the balloonist can open some panels in the dome of the balloon to vent hot air and spin the balloon around.  The views of the tombs below were unique, and it was quite an experience seeing all these balloons doing their aerial ballet.  

At the end of the ride, the balloonist was able to put the balloon down right where his ground crew was waiting.  There were long tether lines that the ground crews grabbed and used to control the ballon in the final 20’ or so of its descent, and the landing was extremely gentle and controlled.  It was nice not to have our basket tip over and have us dragged through a field of cows or power lines.  

Heading back to the ship, we ended up transferring from the minivans to another water taxi which took us back across the river an deposited us right behind our ship.  That supposedly saved about 2 hours that it would have taken to drive the minivans across the nearest cross Nile bridge to get back to the ship.

We had breakfast in the Aquavit terrace, which is topside and aft on the ship as it pushed off from shore and then began sailing downstream from Luxor to Qena.  The Nile sailing was very pleasant.  The outside temperature as in the mid to upper 70’s and it wasn’t too windy so you could very comfortably relax on the outdoor upper deck and enjoy the scenes. There are areas were it appears that locals in very small row boats ferry people across the river.  Surprisingly there are also small herds of cattle, donkeys and horses that seem to be feeding on tiny sand bars and islands along the periphery of the Nile. We saw a couple of people doing their laundry in the river, and also saw men fishing from small row boats using nets.  

At 10:30am there was a lecture by Minai on some of the geography and history of the Nile River.  Since we had been up since before 4am, it was a bit of a struggle to stay awake for the entire lecture, but we were rewarded with some downtime afterwards to nap until lunch.  

When we awoke from our nap, we noticed that the ship was nearly at a standstill with no noticeable wake outside our window.  When we went up to lunch, we discovered that the ship had already docked alongside another ship, an Amawater Ways Nile River cruise ship.  This had obstructed any sort of view out the port side of the ship, so we were fortunate to have been on the starboard side.  

Lunch featured a tasty carrot ginger soup starter.  Ben opted for a good ole fashioned cheeseburger but with avocado added.  It also came garnished with lettuce and caramelized onions.  Janet opted for chicken shawarma in a pita with fries.  Dessert was something called Egyptian corn flake ice cream.  This turned out to be vanilla ice cream served with what can best be described as corn flakes coated with almond bark.  It had an interesting texture and tasted good, although not quite like Tony the Tiger’s Sugar Frosted Flakes.

After lunch, we barely had time to grab out excursion kit and head off the ship for a tour of the Dandarah Temple in Qena.  This is a temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Hathor.  In the temple there are depictions of several interesting things including the symbols of the Zodiac.  This temple was erected in the latter years of the period of the Pharaohs after Alexander the Great had conquered Egypt and declared himself to be Pharaoh.  On the back side of the temple is a large carving depicting Cleopatra VII, who reined as the last Pharaoh of Egypt.  She is depicted as a Pharaoh while Julius Caesar is depicted as a god.  

This temple has some remarkable colorful artwork on the ceiling. This had been hidden for centuries until someone decided to clean off the layers of soot and uncovered what we now see.  There are references to astronomy including phases of the moon, a calendar, and the symbols of the Zodiac.  There is a staircase leading up to the roof of the temple where a small crypt houses hieroglyphs depicting the story of Osiris being murdered by Seth and dismembered into 14 parts.  Hathor, his wife, took it upon herself to reassemble him and mummify him properly.  Unfortunately, she could only recover 13 of the 14 pieces.  That missing piece could best be described as his manhood.  So she crafted a prosthesis of clay to finish the reconstructed mummy.  She then descended upon him in the form of a falcon, landing on his prosthesis to conceive Horus.  Who knew there was so much smut in Egyptian mythology.  But then again, the Greeks weren’t any less obscene.  

After returning to the ship, we cruised back upstream to Luxor.  Ben checked out the “pool”, which is really just a bench you can sit on in the water, which is just knee deep. But it would be nicely cooling and it was very pleasant to sit there and look out beyond the infinity edge of the pool at the boat’s wake and Nile valley as we motored back upstream.

We got to watch some in room TV which included videos on more details of the various temples and Pharaohs, as well as nap before the evening’s daily briefing.
The ship’s officers and Egyptologists were introduced with a champagne toast at the daily briefing. Tomorrow will be a long and strenuous day to visit the Valley of the Kings.  We will be visiting the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, which we saw from the hot air balloon ride today, as well as the tombs of King Tut, SETI I and the Howard Carter House.  But at least we won’t have to get up at 4am.