Our first stop was a few miles out of town, an Egyptian temple with marvelous extensive carvings. Our second stop was a bit further south (we are now only a hundred km from the Sudan border!). The next temple was much like the first with additional rcarved hieroglyphs.
Our site exploration complete we loaded up on snacks, drinks, and chocolates and began our drive north on on to Luxor. A quick stop at a fire station for a bathroom break began our trek. From here it would be a long, hot, and dusty journey. We are thankful for the air conditioning and our ever present security both in the bus and following us in the patrol car.
Update: A change of plans (we are used to it by now) has shortened our drive. Our security agent (he escorted Angela Merkel a few months ago)
has cleared us to take a more direct route across the desert. So instead of heading north and then south we are heading further south and then due east...smile...gotta love the Egyptians and their ever present itinerary changes.
Twenty miles north of the Sudan border and 40 miles east of Libya we finally turned eastward toward the Nile (sigh of relief) and began a 250 km trek northeast to Luxor.
About 100 km across the pavement ended and we were looking at a dirt track for about 40 km. a bit down the track we noticed the remnants of the old paved road running parallel so at the first chance we cut over. Our escort did not seem pleased. Too bad, it was a smoother ride.
An hour later we were back on smoother road. Three more hours and two pretty rough bathroom stops got us to the outskirts of Luxor.
The city of four million on Saturday was not crowded or with a lot of traffic. What a relief! We passed a few of tomorrow's temples before stopping for a late lunch at a local restaurant.
Afterward we were dropped at our VERY nice hotel where we said goodbye to our driver, Emed-such a very nice man. He drives back to Cairo tonight hoping to get home in time to attend his sister's wedding party!
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