what is 40 degrees?

oh no big, its 104 farenheit. and that's the daily temperature in luxor, egypt. now's as good a time as any to mention that a desert tour in the summer may have not been the best idea i've ever had. after two weeks in morocco we're a little deserted out to put in lightly. other than the ridiculous heat, luxor really is incredible. less hassle than the pyramids, and the valley of the kings, valley of the kings, luxor temple and karnak temple are all here. above is the luxor temple. it just hangs out literally in the middle of the town in the midst of the main roads. the columns are shaped to look like lotus flowers and papyrus plants. there is also a mosque built into one side of the temple that is in use everyday.
karnak was by far my favorite site in egypt. as opposed to the pyramids and tombs you can really feel that life happened here. this was a main temple (above is the entryway, called the avenue of the sphynx) and one of the most incredibly preserved sites i've ever seen. this is also where one of the biggest caches of statues was found - over 17,000 were found in just one small area. they are now in the cairo and luxor museums.
these are the columns in the hypostyle hall, the paint underneath is still incredibly vivid. so after searching the internet a bit i've sufficiently stolen enough information to inform you of everything i forgot in the heat. Karnak is the biggest temple complex in the world . It covers area of 100 hectares and is dedicated to god Amon Ra. It was obligatory that every pharaoh add or repair something on it. The construction work began in 16c.BCE. In next 2000 years about 30 pharaohs are "responsible" for its massive size. The Temple consists of 4 big parts but only one is open for the public.

the hypostyle hall is one of the world's biggest sacred places and an architectual wonder. The 134 enormous pillars make an unbelivable impression. 12 of them are taller then the others. They are 21 m tall and about 10 m around. The work began in the time of Ramses I and completed by his grandson RamsesII. The pilars are all in papyrus shape and intricately decorated. Originally they were used to hold up the ceilings but only small part of that can be seen, as most of the ceiling is gone. Two obelisks are placed in small court next to the hypostyle hall. The smaller and older one was erected in the time of Tuthmosis I and it is about 21 m high and weighs about 140 tons. The bigger one is 27 m tall and weighs 320 tons and it is the only remaining obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut. It is made from pink granite from Aswan in very short period of time. It remains a mistery how that was achived as obelisks are made from one continuous piece of granite and usually require massive amounts of time to be extracted, brought up the nile and placed in karnak.
joey amongst the remaining columns.
in the main courtyard.
in the main sanctuary where we took a little respite from the sun with an elderly egyptian man.
our oh my god its so hot faces.
the columns of karnak....
in case you were wondering, mcdonalds will try to own everything.
on a boat across the nile! we spent our last day exploring the valleys of the kings and queens and temple of hatshepsut on the west side of the nile (the town of luxor is on the east bank).
joey and abdul our taxi driver who had outfitted (and was very proud of) his nissan in fake camel fur and built in ash-trays.

water truck outside the tomb of ramses II.king tut....king tut...steve martin anyone? anyone?
ok so i wasn't supposed to take a picture inside but i did...inside tuthmosis III. from the net: Among the oldest, and the one furthest away, not to mention among the hardest to access, the tomb of Tuthmosis 3 ((1503) 1482-1450 BCE) is a nice change from the many other tombs of the valley. Although it digs into the mountain like the others, both the wall decorations and the layout are somewhat different.
The wall paintings are rather uncommon, resorting mainly to simple stick figure representations. The burial chamber is shaped like a cartouche, i.e. rounded. The illustrations in the burial chamber contain sections from the Book of Amduat.
The stick figures on the walls shows no less than 741 deities. This artistic form is not uncommon, similar can be found in papyrus texts dating back to the Middle Kingdom, 3-400 years before Tuthmosis 3.
Note the unusual pit that has to be crossed by a footbridge. The intention of this was probably to fool thieves into believing that this was the actual burial chamber. The fact that this element was not copied later on, proves that it was not considered to have been much of a success.
Tuthmosis 3 was the pharaoh subdued by Hatshepsut, on whom he revenged himself by removing every wall decoration of her from her own temple in Luxor. The mummy of Tuthmosis 3 was moved not long after the burial, to an inferior tomb near the Tombs of the Nobles. Today, it is on exhibit in the mummy room in the The National Museum in Cairo.
we spent the day with iris, who we met at our hostel. she's originally from china and is studying in france. her parents are professors in a town between shanghai and beijing, and she offered joey an english teaching job if he wants it! they are in front of the temple of hatshepsut.
joey's passtime - harassing the locals as much as they harass us...
in front of the temple...web info: The temple of hatshepsut was built in honor to the most famous female pharaoh. The Temple is devoted to Amon Ra and built as a mortuary temple for the great Queen. It is the only one made from the limestone in the New Kingdom period. It has a three huge terraces. Some nicely preserved scenes with the original paint can be found here.
The Collosi of Memnon are two huge statues and the first thing you see after getting across to the west bank of the Nile river. from the interweb: "They are the giant statues of Amenhotep III but they got their name after the Trojan hero Memnon , that's how Greeks interpreted their original name. It was a very popular touristic spot in Roman period because wind through them caused 'singing'. Unfortunately after the restauration in II century AD the sound they used to produce stopped forever. Each statue is 21 m. high and made of a sandstone .
we stayed at the bob marley (oh yes) hostel. and along with every type of memorabilia ever, there was awesome wall painting and a really fun atmosphere...


peace out! on to sharm el sheikh!