Luxor — Jim Winslett

When you say the word, “Karnak,” people of a certain age will have a particular image pop into their heads:

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But not for me. Not anymore, at least. Not after today.

We sailed into the port city of Safaga, Egypt, which looks pretty nice.

But we didn’t see the city, because this was going to be another all-day tour to a city more than three hours away. The buses were lined up and ready for us even before we docked.

Considering how brutally exhausting and frustrating the last all-day foray into Egypt was, I was approaching this tour with as much dread as excitement. Admittedly, my expectations were far lower for this day, as I knew little to nothing about Luxor (aside from the Vegas hotel) and Karnak (aside from the Johnny Carson character). The bus ride was, thankfully, not escorted this time, so we could actually go at freeway speeds. Still, it took about four hours to reach Luxor, where we stopped for lunch at the Steigenberger Nile Palace hotel. It’s a nice place.

The highlight of the meal was the kofta - basically meatballs in an elongated shape like a fingerling potato - with tomato sauce spooned over them. It’s the third time I’ve had kofta on this trip, and thanks to the label next to the dish this time, I knew what to call it. Yay. It’s a new fave.

The hotel is right on the banks of the Nile, which has water that’s bluer and cleaner than expected.

After lunch, it was time for a visit to the Temple of Karnak. It’s not much to see from the parking lot, just a couple of walls, but then once you’re through security and out into the plaza that leads to the temple, you can see much more of it.

Leading up to the pylon (the pair of angled walls) is a ‘street’ of ram-headed sphinxes. They’re surprisingly well preserved, considering they’re around 4000 years old.

But unlike the pyramids, which are best admired from a distance, the Temple of Karnak begs to be experienced right up close, right in the middle of everything. This is especially true in the Great Hypostyle Hall, a forest of more than 100 massive columns, each one decorated from top to bottom with elaborate hieroglyphs. You really can’t imagine how impossibly small you feel while standing among these giants, but perhaps this picture can give you a tiny fraction of the scale of it all:

If you can’t tell how massive these columns are, have a look at the middle of the photo, about 2/3 down from the top. See what white speck? That’s a *person.*

The hieroglyphs on the columns are immaculate and surprisingly, some of the colours are still intact. In recent years, they’ve discovered a way to clean off the layer of dust that hides the colours, exposing the original tint. There are plans to clean all of the columns eventually, but the ones that have been cleaned already are stunning.

And while the columns are limestone, the obelisks are granite. And like the incredible statue of Ramses II we saw at Memphis, nobody knows how the Egyptians of this time, whose only metal available was copper, were able to carve granite. But they did…. and they did a lot of carving. I’ll admit that I never really appreciated obelisks before seeing a real one up close, but holy crap are they ever impressive.

This is only the top 2/3 or so of the whole thing. It’s *really freaking tall.*

I must admit, after the relative disappointment of the pyramids the other day, the Temple of Karnak blew me away. Every jaw-dropping sense of wonder that I expected in Giza (but didn’t really get) was present here in spades. It’s mind-blowing on an epic scale and I was quite simply not prepared for it. It is the highlight of the whole trip so far.

An unusual feature of the temples of Karnak and Luxor is the Avenue of the Sphinxes, which is a nearly two-kilometre pathway linking the two. It has only been discovered fairly recently and is now unearthed and available to view.

And that leads us to the Temple of Luxor. If we hadn’t just seen Karnak, the Luxor temple would’ve been even more impressive. The scale of it, at least vertically, is similar even if the size of the plot of land it sits on is much smaller. We got there just as the sun was starting to descend in the sky.

The columns at Luxor aren’t decorated, but they are joined by giant statues that are just as impressive.

A building on this scale made from these materials would be impressive even today, but I had to keep reminding myself that this would take massive machinery, cranes, power tools, and other methods to construct… none of which were available to the people who actually did build this. These blocks weigh many tons and yet here they are perched atop huge columns as if it were easy.

And of course, there are obelisks here, too. Just as impressive as those at Karnak.

After Luxor, we headed to the museum to see some more antiquities. The museum is very well-done and had some interesting pieces, like this mummy, which was honestly creepy AF.