First Day in Luxor

The first day we arrived in Luxor, we were all very tired.  I was especially tired because I had been staying up until 4 AM, talking and visiting, and then waking up at 8 AM.  This particular morning, I went to sleep at 1 AM, but we had to wake up 2:30 AM for our flight to Luxor.  Now you understand.  When we arrived in Luxor, we went to see three things before going to our hotels.  Our guide was named Wael (pronounced like the word "while") and he was FANTASTIC!  He was the best guide of the whole trip!  He spoke very clear English and was very funny!  He answered all of our questions really well and made jokes with us too.  We were very sad to leave him!  The three things that we went to see were the temple of Queen Hatshepsut, the Valley of the Kings, and the Colossus of Memnon.  Here's a picture of the temple of Queen Hatshepsut.  It's on the other side of the mountain from the Valley of the Kings:

The walls were covered with beautiful painted pictures and the paint that you see in the pictures is still the original paint from 3500 years ago!  This is Kathryn pretending to be the god Enubis in the picture:

Here are hieroglyphics decorating the walls:

Queen Hatshepsut was the queen after Thutmosis I.  She had a brother named Thutmosis III who wanted to be king but he was only 12 years old and she was 27 or something.  She got to be queen.  She ruled for over 20 years and did everything possible to prove herself worthy of being the ruler like the men.  She even put her tomb in the Valley of the Kings instead of the Valley of the Queens and built an underground tunnel going from her tomb to this temple.  Researchers are still trying to find the tunnel today.  Anyway, finally Queen Hatshepsut was killed by her brother so that he could have the throne and he went around trying to destroy everything he could that belonged to her.  He was trying to erase every record of her existing.  So on the pictures and hieroglyphics carved into the walls of her temple, every drawing of her or reference to her cartouche (her name in hieroglyphics) is scratched out!  All the other drawings are there...only ones of her are scratched.  

We also went to the Valley of the Kings on the other side of the mountain.  This is where the pharaohs put their tombs after the capital of Egypt was moved to Luxor (after the time of the pharaohs building the pyramids).  There are several reasons why they made so many tombs there:  1.  The sun sets behind this mountain so they thought it symbolized death.  2.  Also the top of one of the mountain peaks is shaped like a pyramid so they thought it was a sign to put the tombs there.  3.  It's secretive.  The pyramids were being robbed and the treasures were being stolen, so they wanted to hide their tombs to keep robbers out.  They would even have the workers who dug the tombs put blindfolds on, then they would lead them to the place to dig and put blindfolds back on when they left so that not even the workers would know where the tombs were.

Here are Kathryn and me coming out of the tomb of Ramses the 7th.  

Here are some of the hieroglyphics painted on the walls.  The paint is the original paint.  The yellow ovals are the cartouches (names of the pharaohs and gods in hieroglyphics) of Ramses 7. 

We went to see two GIANT statues (see the trees behind the statues) built by Amenhotep III called the Colossi of Memnon.  They once guarded Amenhotep's huge temple (possibly the largest temple in the world) but they're the only things left of the temple.  The temple was destroyed by the yearly flood of the Nile.  Many of the things here are built out of sandstone that is not very strong and limestone that is much stronger.  The things of sandstone washed away gradually from the Nile floods.  The statues were damaged in 27 BC by a huge earthquake. The damage caused one of the statues to "sing" in the mornings until it was repaired.  Now it doesn't sing anymore.  
Here are all of us at the statues (look at the people in the background at the base of the statues for a size reference).  You can also see the mountain behind them where the Valley of the Kings is.  
That afternoon, when we got back to the hotel, I went right to sleep at 1 PM.  I woke up to eat dinner at 6:00 and then went right back to sleep until 7 AM.  16 hours of sleep later, I felt perfectly fine and was all ready for our next day of seeing the most incredible temples in the world!