Walk like an Egyptian…We visit The Karnak Temple

 After a more than full day yesterday viewing the ancient city of Petra, we woke up this morning ready to attack Egypt.. Today is the Temple of Karnak  and the Valley of the Kings. This will be a two part blog as there is so much to see and take in..

Well, the view of the port isn’t much!

We dock in Safaget about three and a half hours from Luxor.

This is the Eastern Desert. The most desolate desert Ive ever seen.Even Death Valley looks like it has some life in it. It is part of the Sahara desert. I miss the colors of our Sonoran desert!

Endless sand punctuated by the occasional hill of sand. And police check points.. In 1997 a group of tourists were killed by extremists and the country was sent into political upheaval.. Now they are constantly vigilant.

In the middle of no where…fully armed police…

Women waiting for a people mover to take them to market. All along the roadway, the closer we get to the city the more we see activity. There is a canal running along the road filled with water from the Nile. the area becomes very agricultural. The desert recedes and with irrigation, the land starts to be productive. All the work is done mostly by hand. Right now is wheat and we saw many out in the fields hand cutting both the wheat and sugarcane.

Every small village has its own checkpoint and guard posts 

In the day time many of the posts were unmanned but when we returned at night everyone of them had a policeman in them.

The Nile River Karnak Temple in the background. Construction on the temple began in 1971 BCE in the Middle Kingdom and continued into the Ptolemaic kingdom 305-330 BCE. So this thing is really really old! The history of Karnak is essentially the history of Thebes (Luxor)

The temple was covered with silt for many years.

The line of ram statues.

Heading into the main columns

Another row of laying Rams

Statue of Ramses 2

Entering the columns of the main room This would have had a wooden roof on top of the pillars

Each column is 10 segments tall with hieroglyphs on each one and surrounding it.

A wall of hieroglyphs 

A man made lake to ease flooding

The color on the columns would have been found on everything inside the temple. Our guide was an Egyptologist who worked with the univ. ofArizona when they were here to study and do research and also with the University of Chicago. He has a masters in Egyptian studies and has studied the directional path of the temple by photographing and studying the sunrise and sunset over a five year period to discover that on /or near the winter solstice the sunrises directly over the alter of this temple and at sunset it shines straight through the column room to the alter. Therefore this temple is considered an east/west one.  He received his PHD for a study of the physical/metaphysical heart in ancient Egyptians. 

The Nile river at the shoreline near our lunch spot

Al wanted to be able to put his hand in the Nile River! It really is quite a river. The entire civilization that was built because of this water source is impressive to think about!

Next we head to the Valley of the Kings to see the tomb of Ramses VI and King Tut

He chose…..poorly But we chose wisely!

 For those who remember a little movie called Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade the moment of climax came inside an incredible stone building somewhere in Jordon.  In the movie, the last crusader is found inside the Treasury guarding the chalice that Christ drank from.. that’s just a movie, theres nothing in reality like that, but the outside of the building used in the movie has always intrigued me. When the chance to see the Treasury, I jumped at the chance to see if it met my expectations. Well, Today we chose wisely and hopped on a bus for the three hour drive to Petra, the ancient city in Jordon where the most magnificent  stone city revealed itself to us. The Center of the Nabatean Kingdom between 400 BC and AD106, it has been under the safely of UNESCO since 1985 and in 2007 it was named on of the new seven wonders of the World. But first… Our journey began with docking in Aqaba, Jordon

It was kinda a gray day beginning with the expectation of rain. 

 The minute we leave the city we are rural!

Crossing the Wadi (valley). This is the area where Lawrence of Arabia helped the British and the Jordanians defeat the Turks . Another entire movie made about this event Seeing the landscape, it was an amazing and gutsy attempt by him! In the area we also saw a Shepard and his flock! Very biblical!!!

More landscape. Yesterday there were flash floods in Petra so am not surprised by the desert water. The desert looks amazing but very formidable.

And the fog/rain starts rolling in.At this point, our bus driver get information concerning an accident ahead of us . Instead of waiting on the roadway, we head off road ( in a freaking bus!!) and end up taking a half hour to an hour driving through the desert on a minimal road through wet washes and mud soaked roadway until we reach an area where we can again get back on the freeway.  My son Brien should meet this driver…. Extreme guts!!!! And for most of the road we couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of us!! He really earned his tip and our admiration!!!!

Ruins of houses near the current city of Wadi Musa ( Moses)

Off roading with a bus!

Entering the UNESCO site soon

Wadi Musa

And then miraculously the rain stopped, the clouds lifted and we were here!!!! There is a roadway that leads to the ancient city of Petra. Along the way there are beautiful ruins and rock carvings that are fabulous! Not only was it a city of the living but also a city of the dead. 

A burial area on the top and below an area for meeting and socializing.  

Caves that may have been tombs or maybe living areas or temples. You can see the influence of the Greeks and Romans who were trading partners and heavily influenced the area.

This rock has a skeleton face ( two eyes and a downturned mouth)

One of the pagan deities

All along the pathway into the city there was irrigation canals carved into each side of the rock that brought water into the city and managed the flash flooding. This passageway through the rocks was part of that system

. Beginning the walk into the Siq…the narrow canyon pathway to get into the city and the Treasurey

 

Every time we turned a corner in the Siq I was expecting to see the treasury….but no, just another breath taking view of the canyon walls!

Looking upwards at the highest portion of rock… I felt really really small! 

Oh my! Dare I hope to be there at last???

What a teaser view!

At Last!!!!

 It was surreal! Here is this magnificent hand carved building so beautiful… and a carnival atmosphere in the front area with venders hawking their wares, camels being used to give rides and pictures, hundreds of people, and chaos. But it was beautiful chaos!!! The “take your breath away” reality was something I hadn’t anticipated.  To actually see something Ive dreamed about for ever….. The overwhelming joy at accomplishing the long (2Km ) walk to finally reach this place was just too much for me to explain. Each step through the Siq was in itself unbelievable beauty and then … the Treasury !!! 

As I had walked more than on the entire trip and wasn’t sure I could go on more, Al went further to explore more of the actual city. Petra is many more buildings that just the treasury. If I ever get to return, I would spend two days or more just exploring the entire complex.

Anyway, Al managed to get pictures of the amphitheater and various other buildings. 

As you can see, there is so very much more than the Treasury to see in Ancient Petra.  Remember this was carved and built in the first century BCE! And tools used were HAND tools!

And just as we leave the area to head back to the ship we have more foggy weather…but it quickly disappears as we head into the Wadi Rum area… along the way

We see wild camels lounging …

 It has been a perfect day in Jordan!!

On a final note: 

Earlier this year we said goodbye to our faithful companion Apollo the magnificent cat. Imagine our joy at finding out he has been reincarnated as a temple cat in  Petra! He always did act like he was royal and worthy of more in life!

 We head back to our ship and look forward to tomorrow.. Next up is the Temple of Karnak in Luxor Egypt and the Valley of the Kings… 

If you ever get the chance to visit Jordon and go to Petra I recommend it completely