Thanksgiving Break, Whoo!: Day 2

Woke up at a reasonable hour on Day 2 (i.e. not at 3 AM) for a huge breakfast and a tour of Karnak Temple. Which, to be honest, was not that much different from Luxor Temple - a pattern we would all detect over the remaining two days of our trip - but still pretty awesome. In addition to being famed for its size (Karnak is the second most-visited monument in Egypt, after the Pyramids at Giza), the temple is also notable for the length of time over which it was built. Beginning during the Middle Kingdom period, around the 16th century BC, work continued on the temple up until the Ptolmeic period, with much of the construction done under Ramses I, Seti I and Ramses II.

A row of sphinxes guards the entrance to the Temple; at one time, this extended all the way to the Nile, and was where the statues of the gods would be paraded between Luxor Temple and Karnak.

Hatshepsut has two obelisks within the temple, one which is standing and the other which has been knocked down - but interestingly enough, is still mostly intact.

Here's me in front of the sacred lake, which used to be filled naturally with water from the Nile. Now it's just a bunch of standing water, and mosquitoes, I would imagine. They don't call it West Nile for nothing.

We spent a lot of Day 2 on the boat, traveling from Luxor downriver to Aswan, and most people, myself included, elected to spend that time sunning ourselves on the top deck. I was alternating between napping on one of the chaises with some friends and reading Georgina Howell's biography of Gertrude Bell (good, but not as good as Janet Wallach's), when I was suddenly roused from my sleep by loud banging and yelling from over the side of the boat.

Naturally, my first thought was "Oh God, we are being taken over by Nile pirates." (Irrational much?) My first instincts proved wrong; we were not being captured by bloodthirsty river buccaneers, but approached by several dozen rowboats full of Egyptian men, selling everything from galabiyas (those long cotton garments you see Egyptian men wearing in some photos) to tacky t-shirts to women's scarves. Selling them to us. Four stories up. Over the side of the boat. Somehow, this did not seem to me to be a wise way to conduct business, but the feeding frenzy that ensued proved that I was of the minority opinion.

Amanda and I watched, amused, as one of our cohorts attempted to complete a transaction for a galabiya with one of the vendors. After haggling the gentleman down from LE50 to LE35, he stuffed the galabiya and a LE50 note back into the plastic bag, and threw it back down - the general idea being that you would receive your change and your purchase back. Except, when the guy pulled out the galabiya to get the money...no money. Furious, he began tearing through every other bag in his boat. No luck. He started yelling up to us, we started yelling back in a sad combination of English and Arabic, but to no avail. In the end, our man ended up with another shirt, LE15 short of where he thought he would be. I, however, was throughly entertained from the safety of my chair, away from the madness over the edge.