20250304 Tuesday, March 4, 2025. Cairo to Luxor Flight. The Temples of Karnak and Luxor. Welcome to the Viking Hathor

20250304 Tuesday, March 4, 2025. Cairo to Luxor Flight.  The Temples of Karnak and Luxor.  Welcome to the Viking Hathor

Getting up in time to finish packing and getting checked out by 5:15am was easy since in our jet lagged state, we normally wake up around 4am.  Now we just have to convince ourselves to really make a go of it.  

The hotel transfer and flight from Cairo to Luxor was made pretty simple thanks to our Viking handlers preparing us for each step in advance, and watching over us like a mother duck over her ducklings.  The security at Cairo’s airport is pretty intense, even for domestic flights.  You are allowed to bring water bottles, but we went through 3 separate screenings and got patted down at each level.  It was notable that they had separate security lines for men and women so that the women could be screened by female agents.  But like at the ballpark, the line for the women’s screening was a lot longer and slower than the men’s.  

The flight from Cairo to Luxor was on a Bombardier regional jet, not unlike the one that a few weeks ago lost a wing on landing and flipped over upside down.  Blazed on the fuselage was Petroleum Air Services, so this appears to be a charter flight service.  The plane was all single class and tightly packed, but it was only an hour’s flight.  We did not see the Giza pyramids on our flight south but the green strip of the Nile’s fertile valley is quite the contrast to the surrounding brown desert and mountains.  

The only hitch on the transfer was while we were waiting to claim our luggage, Ben stepped outside to take a picture of a large LUXOR sculpture in front of the terminal.  Unfortunately, when he turned around to go back in, it turned out to be a one way trip, and no admission back into the baggage claim was allowed.  Ben did get Janet’s attention who grabbed Fatma to see if she could rectify the situation.  She simply and calmly said please enjoy the sunshine outside.  We will be joining you just as soon as the baggage comes out.  Janet just had to mark our bags by raising the pull handles and everyone was soon heading out the same door to the familiar looking Viking tour coaches.

These were different buses and drivers from what we had in Cairo.  These buses were a bit smaller so there were fewer empty seats, but comfortable and modern.  
The bus took us from the airport directly to Karnak Temple where Fatma gave us a highly informative and insightful tour, pointing out several key carvings and relating their symbolic and historical significance, as well as how the Karnak Temple evolved over the millennia under different rulers and economic periods.  

As impressive as the Temple is at present, it was notable that for thousands of years, the bottom 30 or so feet were buried in the sand so the main entrance to a Mosque that was built into the structure in the past is now over 30’ up in the air.  

Opet was one of the most important ceremonies that took place during the period of the Pharaohs. This involved transporting ceremonial boats transporting statues of 3 gods between Karnak and Luxor.  These were Amun, Mut and Khonsu.  The pharaoh at the time caused a bit of a stir because he attempted to change Egyptians, who worshipped a plethora of local gods, into worshiping only Amun Ra, the god of the sun.  Mut was a vulture headed wife to Amun and mother figure.  Khonsu was their son and the embodiment of the light of the crescent moon.  At arrival to the Luxor Temple, Amun is magically transformed into Min, the god of fertility, whose manhood is depicted as the exact opposite of Min (try Max instead).

Carvings in the temple depict the boats bearing the gods on the shoulders of many men, rather than floating down a river.  These figures include high priests, as indicated by the robes they are depicted in, as well as many characters in masks.  One might argue the Carnivals celebrated in western cultures, like Mardi Gras or the famous Carnivals of Venice and Rio, were descendants of Opet. 

Interestingly enough, one of the first structures inside the Karnak Temple is basically a boat house for housing the three ceremonial vessels.  Running between Karnak and Luxor is a 3km long avenue lined with sphinxes.  

The scale of the Karnak Temple is hard to imagine. The most impressive feature is the central Great Hypostyle Hall,  which is a Forest of intricately carved and painted columns.  Although the paint has faded over the millennia it is remarkable to see that it survived at all being sand blasted for thousands of years.  These columns predate the Greek and Roman ones by thousands of years.  

There are numerous obelisks scattered around the site, many temples, and even an artificial lake.  During the time of the Pharaohs, the site was surrounded by a wall and covered 200 acres.  This is larger than the sprawling main temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia.  

We have been fortunate to have ideal weather conditions so far during this trip.  It has been sunny with high cloud cover or clear skies. The temperatures start off in the upper 50’s and have been maxing out in the mid 70’s.  Winds have been gentle.  It has been very comfortable in shirt sleeves.  A light fleece is all that is necessary before 8am and after 8pm.

After Karnak, we visited the Luxor library where we watched a movie highlighting Luxor’s, formerly Thebes, landmarks.  For many it was a chance to rest our eyes for a bit.  The Library has the Avenue of Sphinxes right behind it.

At lunch time, we got to board the Viking Hathor for the first time.  It is tied up very close to the library, and all by itself.  There were no other ships tied up alongside, like we have seen with the Viking River cruise ships on the Danube in Vienna.  
The ship is beautiful and pretty much brand new.  It is a new design specific to the Nile.  We have the most basic stateroom, which was also the last one available on this sailing.  The stateroom turns out to be quite large and comfortable.  It does not have a Veranda, but does have a nice sized window at a comfortable height so you can rest your elbows on the sill.  

There is a tremendous amount of storage in the room with 20 pull out drawers, 9 shelves, and about 5’ of closet rod.  The desk is about 24” deep and at least 5’ wide, so a real desk.  The bathroom is pretty much identical to the expedition and ocean cruise ships with heated floors and mirrors.  

There is a comfortable love seat sized sofa and coffee table, and there is plenty of room to be able to maneuver round these even when someone is seated at the desk.  
One thing unique for Egypt is there is a hand sprayer bidet next to the toilet.  One reason toilet paper is so hard to come by in Egypt is that most Egyptians use these hand sprayer bidets instead of toilet paper.  They are not nearly as refined as the Japanese high tech bidets, but they can get the job done.  

Other parts of the ship are very much like the River and Expedition ships except that there is no spa at all and no DIY guest launderette.  The only option for laundry is formal laundry service where a pair of socks costs 100 EGP or $2 US.  Looks like we’ll be doing some socks and underwear in the sink.  

There is a dining room for all meals with a single seating like on the River cruise ships.  There is an Aquavit open air dining area and a very small sitting pool where you can sit partially in the water and squat if you want to get more wet.  You can’t really swim in it though.  There is a bar in the briefing room which is like the living room area on other ships.  This again is very much like the European Viking Longships design.  

The lunch was the first really decent meal we have had on this trip.  The Sofitel hotel’s restaurant was a disappointment.  Janet and Ben both had English style Fish and Chips with mushy peas, followed by Mango ice cream for dessert.  The included drink service includes house wine and beer with lunch and dinner, but the house wines only include Egyptian wines, and there are only 3 beers on board- An Egyptian lager, Stella and Heineken.  The Egyptian lager was pretty unremarkable but drinkable enough.  The Egyptian wines, on the other hand were not very good.  Perhaps we are just West Coast, New Zealand and Argentina wine snobs.  

After lunch, everybody got their suitcases unpacked and there was a brief, but chaotic muster station drill.  They told every one they had to go to their cabins and await instructions, but the instructions never came over the overhead speakers.  Instead, people just stuck their heads out into the halls wondering what we were supposed to do.  Eventually, crew members told everyone to grab the life jackets from under the beds and to go to the muster stations specified on the back of the stateroom doors.  For the most part, everyone just gathered in the central lobby one floor up from where your room was. We then had to don the life jackets, and then return to our rooms.  There was no seven short blasts of the ship’s horn followed by one long blast.  Princess has their muster procedures as well as accounting for passengers going ashore much better refined.  

On this ship, when you leave the ship, you have to see someone at the passenger services to get a laminated card with your name and room number on it.  This is your boarding passport.  When you return, you have to return it to passenger services.  There is no scanning off or onto the ship.  

Once that was done, we got back ashore and into the buses to visit the Luxor Temple just before sunset.  We got to witness the temple’s transformation from daytime to night time, and to add to the effect, there was a beautiful crescent moon overhead during Ramadan.  

The Luxor temple is smaller than Karnak, but no less elegant, and still a huge structure.  It may be almost as famous for what’s not there as what is there.  There once stood a pair of beautiful obelisks in front of Luxor temple.  Now one resides in Paris.  

There is a smaller forest of columns at Luxor, but some of these take the shape of flower buds rather than bundles of reeds.  What is more interesting is evidence of the Greek and Roman influences over the history of the site.  The Romans covered some walls with plaster and frescos, concealing the hieroglyphics and carvings below.  Alexander the Great went so far as to present himself as a Pharaoh and having his cartouche carved inside the most sacred part of the temple.  

We wrapped up the night with dinner on the ship.  Janet had veal while Ben got to try Egyptian Nile Perch, which was excellent.  It’s hard to emphasize how much better the food on the ship is compared to all our prior meals during this trip.
Tomorrow we have to get up 3:45am so we can take a hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings as the sun rises over the horizon.  There certainly has not been any real downtime during this extremely busy tour so far.