Luxor! (Egypt, that is, not Vegas)

With only a few days between giving my last final and the start of second semester, Jeff and I weren't sure if we were going to have enough time to leave Beirut for a between-semesters adventure. We decided that a whirlwind trip to Egypt was better than no trip at all, so we flew to Luxor, Egypt for a few days. Last year we visited Cairo, the pyramids, and the Sphinx, and so this trip was to see the artwork on the walls of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. We also wanted to see the giant statues of Ramses II in the desert of Abu Simbel.

One of the best things about the trip is that while we were in sandy, dune-y desert, the Nile was never far off. The contrast between the arid desert and the lush, agricultural riparian area was really striking.

There were a lot of great birds near the river as well. Some of them looked like birds I had seen in Louisiana: egrets, herons, ibises. Others, like this pointy-headed guy who watched us having breakfast one day, I had never seen the likes of before.

It was just nice to be around avian life of any sort; it is in short supply in Lebanon. The carvings on the ancient tombs and temples make it plain that the ancients also appreciated the birds and wildlife supported by the river. Many carvings depict ducks, geese, herons, and falcons (especially the falcon-headed god Horus),

as well as fish and reedy-looking aquatic plants.

Of course, life on the bank of the Nile would not have been complete without crocodiles. While we did not see any in the flesh, we did visit a temple in the village of Kom Ombo that was dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile god. Cool.

Even the hieroglyphics incorporated neat images of the natural world. Here's Jeff near some hieroglyphics depicting owls, insects, and slugs:

There are, of course, lots of carvings of people, as well.

Most of the people depicted are pharohs and human-shaped gods.

We visited Sobek's temple on the drive south from Luxor to Aswan. While the Aswan Dam was mighty nice to see, Aswan itself was a fairly stressful place to be a tourist. We couldn't walk down the street without being pestered by men (singly or in groups) to buy whatever they were selling, ride on their boat, or climb into their taxi. If they hadn't been so obnoxious, we might have been inclined to, say, spend an hour sailing around the Nile at sunset on a felucca sailboat,

but instead we just tried to find an out of the way spot to watch them.

From Aswan, we visited Abu Simbel, where giant carvings of Ramses II were relocated after the Aswan dam flooded the surrounding canyons to create Lake Nasser. The carvings were chi sled off the canyon walls and relocated to higher ground. Amazing. The statues on the face of the temples are, to state the obvious, huge. Here are a bunch of photos of them (and us):

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While all the statues of Ramses and his family were mighty impressive, I really enjoyed the fact that while we were looking at them, we could also look across the water and see the arid cliffs of Sudan. It was really exciting being south of the Tropic of Cancer, too.

All in all it was another great trip, even if it wasn't exactly a relaxing vacation. But then again, if we were looking for relaxing, we wouldn't live in Beirut!