48 hours in Luxor....amazing!

This weekend, 10 of us flew to Luxor, Egypt and stayed in the Sheraton for 2 nights. Flight: $113 roundtrip. Hotel: $67 (since 2 of us are sharing a room for 2 nights, we each pay $67). Total cost: $180. Which is incredibly, especially since we booked the trip on Monday and left Thursday.

Luxor is the site of many Pharaonic ruins, including the Temple of Luxor, the Karnak Temple, and the Valley of the Kings.

Luxor straddles the Nile. Most of the tourist attractions are on the West Bank. We stayed in the Sheraton on the East Bank. As we approached the Luxor International Airport after 50 minutes in the air, we noticed that the city lights on either side of the Nile extended only a few blocks. Luxor is small town Egypt. The entire town is devoted to tourism and farming. Since it's the offseason for tourists, we were essentially the only game in town this weekend. Which meant that every taxi and horse-drawn carriage driver, and every faluka (sailboat) captain, and every street vendor, harassed us to patronize them. So even making our way a few blocks from our sisha cafe to the Sheraton was painful. But then again, being harassed by street vendors isn't the worst thing in the world.

Luxor was beautiful. It was the most beautiful and most amazing place I've been to in Egypt. I loved the small town feel. What I wasn't prepared for, and what turned out to be the most alluring part of Luxor was the marked contrast between Luxor's desert and Luxor's farmland. I hope my pictures do this contrast justice, because I could literally stand on high ground in the desert part of Luxor and see the farmland part of Luxor a quarter mile away. And we're talking fertile farmland--small parcels of land farmed the traditional way by families living in 1 room shacks. After we crossed the only bridge in Luxor (built in 2002 by the way) by car/minibus each day, we drove through the farmland to reach the desert. Seeing the farmers in action was humbling because they used very labor-intensive procedures and not many tools you'd expect to see in the States (i.e. i saw many pipes leading from the irrigation canals to a water pump which irrigated the crops, and many farmers doing back-breaking work. I'm sure Dad could appreciate these scenes.) If I could recommend any city in Egypt, I'd recommend a few days in Luxor. Coming from the craziness and pollution in Cairo, 48 hours in Luxor did wonders for my peace of mind (and my lungs). At some of the sites we visited, I could actually hear myself think.

Luxor was about 110 degrees both days, and we toured sites from about 9-3 each day. The heat wasn't that bad because Luxor is in the desert, which obviously is quite dry. The most detrimental effect the heat had was that it repeatedly turned my cold 1.5L of water into shower-hot water in about 30 minutes.

To wrap up this post, I had a wonderful weekend. I skipped Sunday's tour of the Suez Canal (which apparently was a disappointment because it wasn't as advertised) to sleep, but the tradeoff was well worth it. Until next time, salaamu aleykum!