Cartouches at El Kab

Just a quick post with some photos for you!  These are some rock art cartouches that we saw near to El Kab, between Esna and Edfu.

I thought I would share them..... do you know which pharoahs they are?

Spirit of the Nile

Edfu Temple and the Sound and Light Show

I spent a lovely time the other night at the wonderful temple of Edfu, dedicated to the god Horus. They have recently started their own Sound and Light show and I have to say that, for me, it is the best one I have seen so far. The lighting effects were fabulous, the stories they told were spot on and I loved it. Horus, Hathor and Seth were all spoken about, Ptolemy who built the temple and of course, Alexander the Great who founded the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Just a couple of hours drive from Luxor, through the real Egypt and we were there. A quick stop for tea on the way at a roadside coffee shop and we were all set up for this amazing show.

The God Seth

Spectacular lighting

 

At first I thought it was a bit slow to get going and was a tad concerned that I would be bored, but it improved dramatically and all of our small group were mesmerised by it. I could have stayed much longer.

Wonderful colours, magical

My only requirement that was not met was that we did not actually walk through the temple, as you do at Karnak temple, but it was still an excellent show.


 

Colourful finale

Please forgive the bad photos, I only had my phone with me.

Catching up!

And yet another week has flown by and I have no idea where the time went.

Its been a quiet week, well almost.......  I am home alone for a short while and its been lovely most of the time. A friend has been here, she left yesterday to return to Belgium, and we spent a lovely morning wandering around Deir El Medina the other day.  That trip followed our recent viewing of the BBC documentary by Joanne Fletcher about the tomb of Kha and Merit and their lives.  Well..........  I just had to go see for myself!  Didn't find the tomb although I did figure out roughly where it was. Maybe another day when there are less visitors there will find me ferreting around in peace!  We did have a great time though, and even better, we finished it off with a huge jug of fresh lemon juice at Restaurant Mohamed just up by the ticket office.

Last week also saw a visit to a friend who was hosting a lunch in aid of a local charity.The Al Bairat Family Clinic, Luxor, Egypt provides a much needed service to local families with disable children.  To be honest, I have not been, it would upset me too much, but I am very impressed with the work they do with the children. I, along with many others, are happy to support this wonderful facility in whatever way we can.  The Shepherds pie and Robin's famous chicken curry were superb!

Tomorrow sees me off working again........ Edfu temple and El Kab. It promises to be a fun day I think! I will try and remember to get some photos for you all!

Brief updates from me!

I have been very lax in updating my blog and I apologise for that.

It will be impossible to fill in all the blanks since my last post, but I will very briefly bring you all up to date.

Christmas was very quiet, and an extremely peaceful time. I actually found myself pickling some wonderful beetroot on Christmas morning. Not exactly a normal Christmas Day activity, but I enjoyed it!

Since Christmas, business has been pretty good considering the state of tourism in Luxor and I have spent some wonderful days with some wonderful people! We have had felucca sailing on Spirit, temples and tombs and one or two "off the beaten track" days, interspersed with lots of fun and laughter.

New neighbours have arrived in the flat upstairs. Fortunately they are friends and life in our little oasis promises to be pretty good indeed.

My Greek and Roman Mythology course ended, and elhamdulilah, I passed with a Distinction!  I then started an Introduction to Philosophy course, but never finished.  Work got in the way and I found myself getting further and further behind. So I let it go, and will sign up again in the future. Now I am onto my third course....... Ancient Greeks and loving it so far.

My laptop died a very sad death, but I am now the very proud owner of a new one! Much faster than my old faithful and with lots and lots of memory!

And the highlight of the last few months was a long overdue visit by my sister and her man! It was fabulous to see her, and finally meet the man who makes her happy. And we managed a whole week without fighting! How good is that!!

And finally, I have a couple of photos for you.....  

The first one is sunrise 2 days ago from the top deck of the ferry.

And the second is the following day, just yesterday, sunrise again from the top deck of the ferry.

A very different day!

And finally, one more picture at Karnak temple.....

See you all soon!!