Kom Ombo

Kom Ombo Temple is on the riverbank of the Nile. Our cruise ship was able to dock alongside. 

Dual entrance to this completely symetrical temple is also demonstrated by the double sun disks above the lintel. The front facade, birthing room and pillars of the common open court are almost completely destroyed. You can see parts that remain in the top photo. 

Egyptian Calendar. Other engravings within the temple showed the three seasons (flooding, planting, and harvest) Also there was a list of surgical instruments presented to the God of Medicine. 

Partial ceiling showing vultures 

One side of the temple was devoted to Sobek (the crocodile god) and Horus the elder (falcon god)

An important feature of the temple still remaining is the well

Stairs going down into the well indicates that this was a nilometer. Priests used the level of the Nile to determine what taxes would be. The higher the water, the more water from the Nile for irrigation which meant good crops and therefore higher taxes. 

Mummified crocodiles on display in a small museum in the Hathor chapel. There were over 300  mummified crocodiles found buried at this temple. It is known that they also kept live crocodiles on site.

So none of these photos that I used are mine. They were all taken from the internet and I think I used all daytime pictures. When we arrived in Kom Ombo, it was already dusk and turned dark very quickly. I was having a lot of trouble with my camera. I believe now my camera's batteries were either too low or finished altogether. I won't be able to pick up "Dee's" photos from her camera until after I come back from my trip out west. I took 3 photos with my Blackberry, but they have our mugs on them, so I will not use them on my blog. 

That is the beauty of doing scrapbooks, or Memory books. You can document about your trip (or other event) without the use of ANY photos or ones that you have taken from elsewhere. I made sure I bought postcards and booklets along the way. Right now I am in a hurry to document my trip, so I have run out of time to brighten or crop or do any kind of editing to my own photographs. I remember the feeling this night of being "templed out". I hardly knew what I was taking pictures about, and with my camera not working properly, I could have cared less about taking any. I also remember walking by a fellow who was enchanting a cobra with his flute. I hesitated to take a picture, but he was surrounded by a big crowd and my group was way ahead of me and I might not get a picture anyway. Enter the internet. Other people took that photo, so I will use one of theirs in my book just to remember the incident. Other than that, my recollections include going through the gauntlet of vendors going back to the ship. They were the most aggressive of the whole trip. Usually you could walk past them with eyes down or straight ahead, showing no interest at all in their wares. These guys knew they had a very short window of opportunity to sell you something before  you disappeared inside the ship. They literally put things on top of your head, your shoulders, your back forcing you to stop to remove them. It was funny actually. "Dee" called out my name at one point to call me back for help. I had successfully run the gauntlet and was only steps away from freedom. As I was returning to help her, she used my diversion as a way to extricate herself from the group and the two of us ran for the ship, all the while they were calling out "Sooo-zan" (because that was what "dee" had called out.) I didn't ever mind the intrusions of the vendors as they were only trying to make a living. Tourism has declined so dramatically, it has affected their economy immensely.   

Edfu: The Temple of Horus

We travelled from the Cruise ship to Edfu Temple by horse and carriage

Coming back from our tour, I was the one sitting beside the driver. Egyptian drivers need to contend with other vehicles, donkey carts, horse and carriage, tuk-tuks, motorbikes, buses, camels and pedestrians. There is NO WAY I would ever drive on Egyptian roads, especially in Cairo. Our Memphis Tours drivers were exceptional. 

School children

Temple of Hatshepsut and the Valley of Kings

It is Friday night and  I would like very much to finish up the photo log of my Egyptian trip by Monday. The main reason I would like to finish up quickly, is because I am off on another trip this coming Tuesday. My Sweetie Pie and I are flying to Vancouver to see the family. When I come back I want to work almost exclusively on the Memory book of Egypt. This blogging about it has forced me to sort and research the photos in such a way that it all makes sense. On Day One of our Nile Cruise, we  boarded the ship and have been to the Luxor Temple and the Karnac Temple. This morning (Day Two) we were in the hot air balloon and now we are on the West bank of the Nile to visit the Temple of Hatshepsut and the Valley of the Kings.

Hatshepsut was a powerful female pharaoh who ruled for 20 years

Steep cliffs in a horseshoe shape provide the background to this funerary temple.

A series of ramps and terraces to reach the Temple. This is looking back down to the parking lot.

Hot air balloon ride at dawn

Now I know you have seen some of my pictures of the hot air balloons, but I have a story to tell. Our balloon is the solid red one in the photo above. Notice it is flanked by a yellow and green  striped balloon and a  blue one. Soon our basket will right itself like you see with the yellow and green one right now. It is just in the process of coming up from a lying down position. People are already in the yellow and orange basket and will be taking off momentarily. 

When our basket righted itself, we were helped inside. These baskets are large enough to hold about 16 people or more. Then our balloon failed. It was collapsing onto itself so the hot air could no longer get inside to fill out the balloon. (I am thinking that it was because of the flanking balloons pushing us off centre of the hot air) The blue one at this point had grown larger and was pushing ours aside. We had to get into the landing position, which was squatted down and lying on our backs inside the basket. We waited for the other two balloons to lift off before we could start again. So if you are looking at the photo above and you notice everyone is standing sideways. Those are the people on the ground. We are the ones lying sideways. 

Because we were right under the balloon, I was able to get this photo

And this one

A very foggy overcast morning.  The smoke indicates the sugar cane fields being burned off after the harvest. 

 

A "sugar kiss". We got so low at one point, we could pick the leaves of the sugar cane.

Luxor Temple

Because I did nothing yesterday except clean one toilet and help my Hubby with some electrical installations, I thought I should do a little more today in the line of housekeeping. Remember I told you I would continue to use my Christmas (winter) dish pattern 'til February? Well today was the day I finally put them away and brought out my everyday dishes.

I vacuumed the carpeting on the stairs and did two super loads of laundry. I have done two dishwasher loads of dishes. That's it. That's all. But it's more than I did yesterday.

Here are some photos of Luxor Temple. Now I can hear you say....but, Susan. We saw these ones yesterday. But you would be mistaken. These two Temples were only three kilometers away from each other, but were built around the same time. The constructions were very similar. In fact, the two Temples were joined by the Avenue of sphinxes.

Human-headed sphinxes

This photo taken by me at dusk. Details are hard to distinguish. 

Daytime photo from the internet. The missing twin obelisk can be found in Paris. Grooves in the facade were for erecting flags, as can be seen in the next photo. 

Artist's rendition of how the Temple looked "back in the day".

Ramses II

Early Coptic Christians hid out in these temples during the persecutions. They considered the hieroglyphics to be pagan, so plastered over them and painted Christian scenes. 

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Later, a Mosque was built over the Temple. After the archaelogical excavation, it is still a Mosque today, entered from the street on the other side. 

Inside the protected walls of the Temple, there is evidence of the colour they used to paint the hieroglyphics.

Sorry about the poor quality of some of these photos. I've included them anyways, but I bought postcards to supplement my scrapbooks. I can also use photos from the internet, like I did tonight to illustrate what I experienced. Sometimes, photos were not allowed to be taken. 

Monday morning and two blog posts

On Friday I managed to vacuum the downstairs like I planned, but then I ran out of steam. Having managed my jet lag rather well all week, I decided Friday afternoon to have a wee nap. I didn't wake until 5:45 p.m. in time to make dinner. I warmed up some chili con carne and a pasta bake leftovers....my idea of fast food.

I have not yet done a major grocery shop since I have come back. We still have some food left in the freezer. But I sent my Sweetie to Giant Tiger and No Frills for a few sale items. I will have to do a recap of that shopping trip someday soon, as I didn't take pictures. Instead, I took out my card stock and stamps and played both Saturday and Sunday. I have a lot of Spring birthdays coming up and I needed to replenish my card supply. You will notice that I went a little crazy with my Inkadinkadoo stamp called "Meadow". These are silhouette stamps of wildflowers and grasses.  I had a lot of fun with these.

The little rocket is on an action wobble (a spring fastener), so it moves around. I did some more water painting for my bouquets of flowers. I also managed to download the photos from my camera and sort through them. I need to use some for my blog and I need to print out others (with faces in them) for my scrapbooking. People are asking to see my photos, and they have sort of taken a back burner. I need to get them printed.

And finally, not to be outdone by Nathalie's Garden Updates, I am including today my own version of Garden updates: voila.

Snowdrops

Aubretia deltoides  (rock cress)

First crocuses

This morning's snowfall

Karnak Temple

We arrived from Cairo to Luxor by an overnight sleeper train. That in itself was quite an experience. We were ushered to a room with a wide train seat with a table between us and a window for viewing. There wasn't a lot of viewing because it was already dark by 7:30. About 30 minutes later, we were brought  hot dinners served on a tray by our steward. Washrooms were at the end of our sleeper car, but in our sleeping berth we had our own enclosed vanity with sink and running water, and a complimentary bottle of drinking water. Everywhere we went, our guides had provided us with cold bottled water. Water from the taps was not for drinking, only washing.  When our steward came back for our dinner trays, we asked him to make up our beds. We had not slept well on the 12 hour non-stop flight to Cairo and then touring the sights in Giza and Memphis all day. I had the bottom bunk (yay!) and "Dee" took the top. It was a good sleep for me. (I like the rocking motion of the train and I was so tired, I could have slept upright), but it was an interrupted sleep because of the lurching motion, stops and starts,  and lots of other passing trains. We were awakened at 4:30 because we were due to arrive in Luxor at 5:30. At 5 A.M. they brought us a hot breakfast of eggs and potatoes, and lots of different kinds of breads and spreads. A guide met us to take our luggage and take us to the Sonesta St. George, where fortunately we were able to board right away and shower and have a nap....our first GREAT sleep since we left Toronto. When we awoke, we had a self tour of the boat and went to the dining room at 1 P.M. for a buffet lunch. Have I described how everything was luxurious on board? We met our Egyptologist Ahmed, who would be travelling on board with us and would be our guide for the next four days. Our first tour was the Karnak Temple.