Luxor to Sharm El Sheikh

I had heard about Luxor from various friends and family who have visited in the past. What they didn't inform me of is that Karnak and Luxor temples are probably the most amazing sites we have ever visited.

If you haven't been to Egypt, go. If you go to Egypt, go to Luxor. I wish we had gone to Abu Simbel, but a quick day in Luxor satisfied our craving for more Ancient Egypt. Combine the East and West banks of the Nile around the city and you could safely classify the entire city as a museum.

After a 3am departure from the Cairo Marriott and arriving at 6am, we hit the ground running by heading to the West Bank on a 3 hour tour set up by the Sheraton, where we stayed for the single night (shortened from two nights due to the "snowstorm" in London). If serious power touring like we did, you can see most of the main sights in Luxor. We started at the Valley of the Kings, which contains an amazingly preserved collection of hieroglyphs. Its too bad all the tombs were looted, otherwise it would be the top tourist destination in the world. Regardless, it was a really cool trip into the mountains to see the tombs. We also saw the Tomb of the Nobles and Valley of the Queens on the West Bank.

After returning to our hotel and a quick bite for lunch, we headed to the East Bank for an afternoon of Karnak and Luxor Temples. I knew they'd be great, but the fact that the New Dynasty, when the temples flourished, is 3,500 dated and to have the structures so well preserved/restored is amazing.

In my opinion, it blows ancient Rome out of the water. I mean, look at this!!!

The first is Karnak temple. One thing we did, which many people don't like, it go along with the security guards who show you closed off parts of the site. Many people are turned off as they expect a little tip when they move the ropes for you, but as we learned at Al Azhar in Cairo, £1 for a different perspective is often worth it. In this case, we were led to the side of a closed off monument under refurbishment, where a hidden staircase offered us an amazing view over the entire temple from up high. It was a great sight!

Following the temple, we followed Joelskie's lead and walked from Karnak to Luxor along the Nile right around a magnificent sunset.

One interesting note that would make a frequent visitor to Luxor want to come back is that in the next 18 months the city will open up a reconstructed avenue of the sphinxes that originally contained over 1300 Sphinx statutes on a 3km path. They have opened one section recently which is remarkable in itself, but once the entire ancient trail is reconstructed, it will be incredible.

We ultimately entered Luxor temple right at Sunset. Both Karnak and Luxor are open late and can be seen under the stars, but Karnak has a light show whereas you can leisurely walk around Luxor temple and admire the shadows in a romantic setting. Below is the completed portion of the Avenue of the Sphinxes, the pic doesn't do it justice.

Following a great stroll around Luxor temple and nice meal at Sofra, which is a highly recommended restaurant while in Luxor, we had a lazy night and it was off to Sharm El Sheikh to finally meet Joel, who was supposed to be our trip buddy the entire trip but was a couple days ahead of us given our set back.

We arrived to the Sharm Renaissance Marriott to an amazingly rude welcome, charging us $70 for one extra person. We had disagreements with the GM to the extent where we almost left the hotel. I am still steaming. It really gives a bad impression to Marriott, especially given the Petra and Cairo Marriott hotels were the complete opposite of the Renaissance Sharm. DO NOT STAY THERE.

Regardless it was great to meet Joelskie and catch up on the craziness over the last few days. We also decided to do a Christmas morning hike up Mount Sinai, why not, right?!?!

Its a good idea in theory and a cool experience to climb the mountain to catch the sunrise on Christmas morning, however, you must be fully committed as the overnight hike consists of a 10pm pick-up and starting the ascent at 2:30am to catch sunrise. Regardless of the lack of sleep, it was a great experience and so much fun!

We got a great seat and caught an clear sunrise over the mountains. It was really worth the effort. Our group was good and our guide was a cool guy too. It was chilly despite being in Egypt, but the Bedouins of course had blankets for rental!

We then hiked down, catching a couple cool pics and then checking out St. Catherine's monastery to see some relics of St. Catherine and the Burning Bush, where Moses allegedly spoke to God.

We made it back to Sharm at about 2pm the following afternoon (i.e. it was a 16 hour tour) and caught a few waves in the Red Sea (but due to all the shark attacks had to stay close to shore). At least we can check another major body of water off the list:-)

Onto Jordan, and yet another unique body of water...