Day 9 Karnak Temple and the Luxor Museum

Monday March 28^th

We started out this morning at 7:00 and drove a short distance to the Karnak Temple. This is the largest temple built in Egypt. Luxor is built on the site of the ancient city of Thebes. Every king of Egypt came here and added something to it, either another gate, or sphinx, or statues or another smaller temple on the grounds. It is massive. Sam gave us another history lesson and then we had an hour of free time to wander around and explore it.

From there we went to the Luxor Museum. This is a new museum that houses a set of beautiful almost perfect statues that were uncovered at the Luxor Temple a few years ago. It also houses a few items from King Tut's tomb including one of his chariots. The museum is beautifully laid out and, unlike the Archeological Museum in Cairo, it doesn't hold too much and can be viewed easily in an hour or two.

Next we drove to visit the ACE (Animal Care in Egypt) site. This is a non profit animal protection agency set up by two women who visited Egypt and were upset by the state of the working donkeys and horses and the treatment they received. They decided to do something about it. The result is a care and education facility. They have a couple of Egyptian vets and bring in other vet volunteers from around the world to treat and care for the animals. In addition they education the owners of the animals and have a classroom where they bring in classes of local children to educate them too. The lady told us they believe that the Egyptians aren't deliberately cruel to the animals they are just ignorant of proper treatment. Inspiring place.

Then we went to a local Luxor woman's house for lunch. She is a well educated Egyptologist and a local guide. She used to work for Intrepid too, until Intrepid decided to only have one guide and not include a local one as well. She was very interesting to talk to and the food was very fresh and tasty. She is very happy about the revolution even though it has really hurt her livelihood. She says that she is willing to suffer for awhile for a better Egypt. Seems to be a common feeling here.

Spent the afternoon back at the hotel and in the internet cafe trying to catch up on some things. Then I met Sam at 7:00 and we went for dinner at Snack Time again, only this time on the fourth floor which has a better menu. The view from there overlooks the Luxor Temple which is lit up with yellow lights at night. I had a really good chicken dinner with lots of fresh vegetables! and a fresh lemon drink. Then we walked all the way back to our hotel. Temperature was perfect and it was interesting watch all the people. By the time we got back, we had a short wait for our van to take us to the train station to catch the night train to Cairo. I had my own cabin this time and after finishing my Grisham book, I had a pretty good sleep.