Luxor: Day 4: Temples and Sailing Down the Nile

Sitting around and the Luxor Temple

The pillars are enormous

Me in a row of sphinx's

Good ol' Ramsis 2

Us by an old lake in the temple (I forgot to turn off the black and white photo setting)

Look at how much Charmaine loves this temple

Luxor Temple entrance

I think this was the first mosque in Luxor

Look closely at this picture. Notice the dark spot (it's the part of the picture that  people touched the most, and is dark from dirt and oil from people's hands.)

A canal

Boarding the sail boat in the Nile River

My camera was set to Sepia setting, but it turned out a nice picture nonetheless

Black and white setting of the Nile River

Preparing to embark on our amazing sunset cruise down the Nile

Another black and white photo I took. I think this one is pretty nice.

Other people enjoying the beauty of the river

Only my feet are going in. I didn't want a crocodile to eat me.

Charmaine riding the Titanic

Our sail-master

People hanging out in the Nile, washing and playing

Catching fish

And admiring the passing boats

Another popular spot for locals

Tammy became our captain for a while

Charmaine and our other sailing captain

Rachel is loving every minute of this cruise

A small boat of men admiring the lovely ladies of our ship

The sun was starting to set...

and if you know me, 

you know how much I love a good sunset.

So, day 4 in Luxor. We visited the Luxor temple, which was literally across the street from our hotel, so there was no need for a car ride or any of that. We spent a good amount of time checking out the temple, seeing more statues, pillars, and old art. The temple was really awesome to look at, but it was very hot out and we were breaking a serious sweat. So, after some time exploring, we made our way back to our hotel, where we would spend a few hours cooling off in the rooftop swimming pool, having some lunch, and taking an afternoon siesta. We had to prepare for the highlight of our stay in Luxor, which would be us sailing down the Nile to watch the sunset.

We walked to the sailing port, and boarding our boat, which meant walking across this narrow plank to get to the boat. You had to hope that you didn't lose your balance or else you would fall into the river. The sailboat is called a feluqqa (pronounced fel-oo-ka), and it is a traditional Egyptian sailboat. We had to gentlemen as our captains, and they also were big fans of the Egyptian puzzles and riddles (making designs out of toothpicks, and untying tricky ropes and things of that sort). As we sailed down the Nile, we saw other fellow sailors, people in all sorts of boats, plus a lot of locals hanging out in the river as well, swimming, playing, bathing, washing things, and watering their animals. It was really cool to see so much different life and activities going on along the river. Now, this part of the river is very safe, as in there are no crocodiles. The crocodiles are way further away, past 2 dams is Aswan. On that part of the Nile, which was maybe hundreds of miles from where we were, before the dams, there are estimated over 500,000 crocodiles, if I remember the number correctly. So, we didn't have to worry when we did things like stick our feet into the water. A little more than half way through our sail down the Nile, the sun was setting, and I love sunsets. I was able to capture some pretty sweet photo's of the sun setting, so that made me really happy. We had such an awesome time on the sailboat, and it was just what we all needed. It was a lovely change of scenery, where we got to see the river and trees and greenery and mountains and people and animals. We had a chance to just relax and really enjoy ourselves. If you ever make your way to Egypt and the Nile River, I would very strongly recommend you sail down the Nile. It is peaceful and perfect and an important part of any getaway. This was our favorite part of the trip, and I hope that maybe we can do it again one day. 

After our Nile trip, we went out to eat and a nice little outdoor restaurant, had some tasty food, and made our way to the train station, where we would embark on our 12 hour trip back to Cairo.