Today was a long day. Blog entry will be short - I keep falling asleep while loading and looking at the photos of the day.
We traveled from Aswan to Luxor, making some fascinating stops along the way. As an introduction, I guess, to the temples of Luxor and Karnak which we will be looking at over the next few days, we visited the quarries from where the sandstone blocks were extracted to build the great shrines. Inscriptions, shrines, even tombs abound in the imposing quarries of Gebel SilSila.
About halfway between Aswan and Luxor we made a left-hand turn towards the Nile on a narrow dirt road and into a lush cultivated area. A boat was awaiting us for an extraordinarily lovely ride on the Nile, first to the quarry site on the west bank, and then to the larger quarry on the east bank. These quarries, like I said, furnished the stone for many of the Luxor area temples, but also produced shrines, sphinxes and other statuary, some of which lies unfinished or broken in the mounds of tailings around the walls of stone. Very very impressive. Another treat today was a visit to the Vulture Rock, and immense monolith, covered with pre-dynastic petroglyphs, as well as some pharaonic inscriptions, that is located in a desolate, windy valley. Further visits to local tombs of nearby new kingdom nobles revealed remarkably fresh and well preserved wall decorations.
I suspect our guide Medhat pulled some major strings - negotiating on the fly with local officials and guards - to make today possible. It was just a magnificent day.
Some of our group are taking the optional hot air balloon ride over the west bank early tomorrow morning (I am not). After that we all go to the Valley of the Kings, Deir el-Bahri and the great temple of Hatchepsut, and will visit some of the nobles' tombs at el Gurna.
OK, going to bed. Tomorrow will be a long day too!
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