Egypt (Luxor continued)

On the first full day of Luxor, we woke up at 4:30 am to go on a hot air balloon ride. If we didn't feel sick on the balloon ride, we certainly felt sick later that day... except for my Mom of course. I felt like puking on the ride, as did my Dad. Kitty came down with whatever I had plus exhaustion later in the day. But, we did get some cool pictures out of it!

We saw the sun rise over the city and got a great view of Queen Hatshepsut's (Hot-chik-soup) Temple. The last picture shows the farmlands, where we landed the balloon.
Landing was rather smooth, though a "farmer" came out of nowhere asking us for money. It became a sort of meat market because all the tourists were stuck in the tiny basket of the balloon as locals came out of nowhere to beg for whatever we had. Once we were finally allowed out of the basket, we had to stay and dance to a poorly played drum. Apparently, this is the custom. I think it's a way to force more money out of our pockets. I refused to dance, instead focusing my attention on a dog... until a young boy pointed at the dog, said "dog", then asked me for money for helping me figure out what kind of creature it was. I was feeling so nauseous, hot, and aggravated that I just glared at everyone.
After getting out of the farmland and eating breakfast, we headed to Howard Carter's castle, the man who funded and helped discover King Tut's Tomb. This was more like a one-floor house than a castle. We stayed there for less than half an hour before heading to the Valley of the Kings. We couldn't take pictures in the valley, so unfortunately I have nothing to show for it. We saw a couple tombs, including King Tut's. The paintings on the walls and ceilings were marvelous! Some of the best of the trip!
Afterwards we went to Queen Hatshepsut's Temple. By that time, it was so hot we could barely walk. We took a tram to the temple where my Dad's hat fell off... I convinced him to jump off the tram to retrieve it. Muhahahaha!

There's my poor Dad running back to the tram. The temple was one of the most beautiful sites we saw. The geometry was fantastic! Apparently, there were trees lining the road to the temple, which means that there must have been some sort of irrigation, but there are no remains of such technology. However, tons of Sphinxes were found in the rubble around the temple (shown below). After the queen's death, her brother became ruler of Egypt. He had a long hatred for his sister, so he had all drawings and cartouches of her removed from the temple.

The one day I wore shorts!

We went to one more temple after this one... I'm sorry that I don't remember the name. By that time I was so sick I could barely stand. I do, however, remember one thing from the temple. It was a New Kingdom temple, so the drawings were very different. The Pharaoh who owned the temple really wanted his greatness in battle to be depicted on the walls, to gory battles and scenes after battles were shown. Warriors were told to cut off the hands of each man he had slain (shown below).

We ended our first full day at Luxor at the hotel. Finally, I was able to just sit by a pool.
The next day we went to Karnak, which is arguably the most important ruins in ancient Egypt. The temple is very old, so many generations have used it and built upon it. It stopped being built when Christian rulers came into Egypt and was left unfinished. Because of the state it was left in, we can see how the Egyptians were able to make the walls to high! They made mud ramps!

Above is a picture of the Sphinxes that lined the walkway into the temple. Below that is the only standing obelisk in the temple. That ends Luxor, we took a plane to Cairo later that day and the next morning Kitty left.