Our second day started with an early flight to Luxor. Our driver was waiting for us at the hotel at 3.30 AM and we left for the airport – it was around 40 min trip to the airport without traffic in Cairo. We caught our domestic flight and arrived in Luxor around 7 AM, the plane took off at 6.00. We were initially scheduled to fly at 6.20, so when I didn’t see a representative from our agency I thought that we might wait a bit. Luckily he was there together with the new driver.

Our Luxor guide, Halim, was so nice, just like Omar who showed us around Cairo. We immediately started our excursions as the check in at the cruise ship was later and we could go earlier to a few temples and thus, avoid the crowds that would’ve come later.

So we were headed to the Karnak Temple first – the biggest temple in Egypt. It is MAGNIFICENT! It has lots of sphinxes and two giant walls in front and lots of tall massive columns. Halim told us that the columns are mainly two types – like the Papyrus flower of the Lower Egypt and Lotus flower of the Upper Egypt. We also saw there a few statues of Ramesses II with his daughter and wife next to him. If you see a statue next to the right leg of the pharaoh, she’s his mother, next to the left leg – his wife and if she’s in the middle between his legs – then she’s a daughter. We had free time to walk around the temple.

Kind Tutankhamen

Then Halim offered us an unusual excursion and I’m glad we did it – a boat trip to the Banana Island where they had a lot of Banana trees/bushes, Mango, Guava, Papaya, Mandarin, Lime, Orange, Sandal, Eucalyptus trees, Date palm tree and Sugar cane, then we had a fruit salad and a local shisha with Apple flavour – oh God, it was aaawesome! =)

Then we went to the ship to check in and had a rest. Around 5:30 Halim picked us up and we went to the Luxor temple which was in the sphinx avenue – a street with more than 500 sphinxes found to connect the temple with the Karnak one. The Karnak temple was considered the place where Ramesses II used to work and once per year for one month he went back to the Luxor temple (his home) to stay with his family.

Me and Halim (hope he doesn’t mind that I post this)

Finally we walked a bit around the city of Luxor and Halim brought us to a place where we could try juice of Sugar cane. They just put the sugar sticks into a machine and the juice comes out, so fresh and so sweet, we could barely finish only one glass of this great juice.. I bought then three packs of local Egyptian strong flavoured hookah tobacco and I can’t wait to try it out back home.

And here’s our ship, pretty nice, huh?

Well, that’s it for today 🙂