هل تحب أن تأخذ صورتي

Luxor, a touristy area that seemed to be built around ancient ruins to which all tourists flocked. The moment we existed the airport, after a brief and bumpy one-hour ride, I knew this was far from Cairo. The Nile was a beautiful blue and hotels lined the road. The tourism didn’t conceal the decaying buildings and poverty that was exists here as well, but the cuteness of some of the streets did take one’s attention off of the harsher reality of some the Egyptians living there. Within an hour of our arrival we were on our way to see the Temple of Karnak, and others. Let’s just say that seeing those sights and temples was a bit like getting a pony for Christmas; I never thought it would happen, but then it did and it was amazing. 🙂 Ponies aside, the next day was way too rushed. Valley of the Kings was our first stop, and we spent our time intruding other people’s resting places.  I found it strange. Going into tombs and gawking at everything. The ancient people who ordered these sites to be built kind of wanted to be left alone there, with all their goodies, for a very very long time (aka eternity). Think about how well sealed all those places were. And here we are, taking all their possessions out, putting them up for display in museums around the world, and then letting thousands of people run around their tombs everyday. I bet if they were alive, this would be the kind of thing that would go on Jerry Springer or something.

Having spent a good amount of time in the Valley of the Kings, where we were not allowed to take pictures, we were given 30-10 minutes in other sites, such as the Temple of Hatshepsut. Forgive me for whining, but 10 minutes is not enough to even tour the Hatshepsut temple completely! On the other hand, we got to spend a considerable amount of time in a pottery-place-thing-workshop where everything was overprices. Oh yeah, our tourist guide probably got  a lot of commission out of that one. Let me just say that he took his time with the shisha in that store. But despite all the rush, Luxor was still an amazing experience.

There was a stone scarab in the Temple of Karnak, and the myth was that if you walked around it 3 times, you would have lots of luck. 5 times and you would have love. 7 times and you would have love and marriage. Or you could make a wish and walk around 7 times and that would come true too. I went with the last option 😉