So one more boat ride that took us all from the hotel to the Karnak Temple Complex. One of the coolest things in this temple is the huge hypostyle hall that leads into the Holy place in the temple. The columns there are about 15 feet around at the base (at least) and there are tons of them, just tons! There is still some of the original paint on some of the columns as well. It's an amazing feat that happened here to make all of this possible. The thought and
work that all had to go into this is just amazing, thats for sure. One of the cool things about this place is the Sacred Lake where the priests would wash themselves before going into the temple. This is an artificial lake that is HUGE, prob about 300 yds on each side and deep. I don't know how deep because they do keep water in it still, but there was still about 15-20 ft that was not full and I couldn't see the bottom. Right next to the lake is this scarab statue where it is tradition to run around seven times for good luck and a quick marriage, so i'm sure that you can guess, all 40 of us BYU students ran around the darn thing 7 times! I'm sure that all of the other tourists loved seeing that! Fun stuff, fun stuff! This was also a cool place because this Holy of the Holies had very specific drawing of the ceremonies that they would perform inside the temple, or ones that would occur after death. It was interesting to see the things that they built these great temples to do, and how similar some of them seemed as well. It really gives an eternal perspective to the gospel of Jesus Christ.Then we took a carriage ride from Karnak to Luxor temples. I would love to say that it was a romantic carriage ride with a girl, but I was riding with Adam :( ha ha, just kidding. Adam and I had a great conversation about things, I really like the guy, he's a lot of fun and he's smart, so i'm trying to learn a few things from him. Luxor temple is right in the middle of the city, which you just never really think about when you see pictures of the place. Back in the day there was actually a row of sphinx that went all the way from Karnak to Luxor connecting the two holy places of the time. One of Karnak lies on the East-West line to symbolize the path of the sun, and in the same aspect, life to death. Luxor on the other hand is on the North-South line that follows the Nile, and so the life and power of the river. The gods would travel from one to the other to show their omnipotence over everything.
Luxor temple was taken over by Ramses II who put these two huge colossus of himself outside the main gate, as well as adding huge relief carvings to the face of the temple depicting his hunting and wars. This temple is also known for it's obelisks which are the largest in Egypt. Queen Hatshepsut actually made the largest obelisk out of one single piece of red granite. This is actually a story that is also depicted at her temple that we saw just a couple days ago (crazy eh?). Anyway, the thing is huge and has quite the story of how they got it to stand up, but you'll have to ask for that later if you want the story. So yeah, this was a neat temple because so many people helped to build it. Ramses II, Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, and Amenhotep III and so each section has these cool little parts that are unique to any other part of the temple. Actually, the only reason that we really know that Hatshepsut was there was because of t
he obelisk, because her son Thutmose III didn't like her much, and so her image and name has been removed from everything. So you know if you are looking at her if you see a scratched out name or figure! But he couldn't destroy the obelisk because it was to Amun and he couldn't insult the gods, and so what he did was build a wall around the whole thing so that no one could see it! This helped to preserve it through the years and now we have this great thing of the past that is really well preserved! Oh the irony!Anyway, so from there back to the hotel with some free time to go. We were going to go to one of the museums in town, but we were told the wrong time that it was closed for the afternoon, and so we ran out of time to do that, so a group of us
walked around town to see some sights. We walked though a few other bazaars and then we decided that we wanted to go into a mosque since none of us had seen the inside of one. There is a bigger mosque right next to the Luxor temple and so we chose to go to that one. Well, the mosques are an interesting thing, really simple inside with just a little decoration. Men and women have to take off their shoes and women have to have a head covering. So we went and saw that and then they let us go into the tower to have a great view of the city and the temple from up 150 steps! That did cost us a little to tip the guy that took us up, but it was really worth it. Things around Egypt are really cheap! But yeah, so then we just walked back to the hotel while seeing a little more of the city along the way. This is also the place where we got the free literature about Muhammad that would igve me issues at the border later! Oh the stories!Anyway, that was the end of the day really, we packed up from the hotel and w
e got to go over to the train station for an overnight on a train back to Cairo. We actually got sleeping cars, although this was really not up to Amtrak standards I don't think! For one thing, the bathrooms have the same disposal system as airplanes if you get my drift! The food was really iffy, and the train loud, but still knew how to have fun on the train, even if we didn't get the best night sleep ever! We didn't get to shower either, I guess we'll see in the morning if we get into our hotel that early since we are going to be in a 530am! Have a good day all!
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