Another catch-up

Cathy asked me to write another catch-up blog entry to talk about what we have been doing, as opposed to the comments we have been receiving.

Abu Simbel was mentioned in passing but deserves more explanation. There are two massive temples there built by Ramses II. It is far in the southern part of Egypt near the Sudanese border. We drove through the barren desert for two and a half hours to get there. The temples were moved and reconstructed in their current location in order to avoid submersion from when they dammed the Nile. They are in the same location on the lake, only 60 meters higher.

Later that day, we walked through the market, called the 'souq' in Aswan. There were amazing stalls selling spices. We also saw a lovely park overlooking the Nile. We also went to the Nubian Museum.

The next day, we joined the convoy of tourists to drive north to Luxor. Along the way we stopped at two temples: Kom Ombo and Edfu. Both were quite impressive.

We then arrived in Luxor and found some food (more difficult than it should have been). Then we went to a fancy old school colonial British hotel that was really beautiful with wonderful gardens and amazing lounges.

Today we went to the Valley of the Kings and climbed into three tombs to see incredible paintings and carvings. Because they were not exposed to the sun, the colors were still bright and beautiful. Climbing into them was also fun. We also saw the awesome Temple of Hatshepsut (which Sara calls Hot Ketchup), a powerful queen of Egypt who depicted herself as a male king. Her son destroyed her image everywhere once he took over. Then we went to Tombs of the Nobles that showed images from daily life.

I think that's about it. Oh, a hoopoe is a bird, and son and lumiere means sound and light.

Signing off - Jo
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