Day 128: Long, Hot Drive from Aswan to Luxor with Multiple Temple Stops
Today was a travel + touring day. The plan was to drive north along the Nile from Aswan to Luxor with Tariq and Romani, our Aswan driver and guide. The hotel packed lunch for our 3 – 4 hour trip, not including a couple touring stops.
Romani told us we absolutely had to be in the car by 7am. When we asked why so early he muttered something about police checks and timing along the way. That didn’t make much sense but we went with it — 5:30am wake up, 6am breakfast, 6:45am on the ferry with all of our luggage plus bag lunches.
We were never checked by police and didn’t have temple tickets with designated times.
By the end of the day we suspected that he wanted to leave that early so he and the driver could be back by sundown. Tariq is Muslim so maybe he wanted to be back to break the fast and Romani was covering for him? That would be totally understandable — just wish Romani had been honest. Our itinerary had said 9 am.
Our itinerary actually only included one stop: the Edfu Temple. However Romani didn’t have or know the itinerary so we stopped first at the Temple of Kom Ombo. A couple videos of the scene…
Ancient Egyptians believed that crocodiles were a god of fertility and this Temple was built in the honor of that god. Crocs were respected, adored and feared. (Pics NSFW)
They even mummified them after death. On this site archeologists found 300+ croc mummies. The best preserved were in the museum.
After visiting the temple we spent 10 minutes in the Crocodile Museum checking out the mummified crocs and learned more about the significance of these creatures.
The museum was the highlight in my opinion. The written exhibit descriptions were easier to understand than Romani’s verbal explanations and it provided an escape from the blazing sun.
We got back in the car for another hour and 15 minutes. The kids snoozed as we headed towards Edfu.
The Edfu temple was on the itinerary and it was worth the stop. It was built between 237 and 57 BC in honor of the god Horus.
But it was difficult to really enjoy it. It was well over 100 degrees, the kids were losing patience, and Romani was rambling on for too long and so hard to understand.
About midway through the tour Willa summed it up: “I feel so terrible! The hotness…the hungriness…the boringness…”
So funny — but we felt her pain.
We got back in the car and broke out our bag lunches. But these weren’t brown bag lunches. Each person had a medium sized shopping bag with two sandwiches, a salad, fruit, chips, 5 or 6 deserts and a bottle of water. Excessive. We maaaybe ate 40% of it with everything else going to waste.
Also, each item was individually packed in a plastic container and some were wrapped again in cellophane. (This is becoming a theme in Egypt — they are waaaay behind the times in terms of environmental awareness. And it’s not a developing world thing — remote parts of South America and Africa were far more woke about stuff like this.)
We arrived in Luxor by 2pm or so. We were staying at a newly renovated Hilton right on the Nile. The pool (and a cold beer) made today’s sweaty struggles go away.
This was a challenging day, but to be clear: everyone was in good spirits the entire time. We had a lot of laughs on the bus and are genuinely enjoying ourselves as we explore Upper (southern) Egypt.
We finished the day with dinner at one of the hotel restaurants. The kids were exhausted. We sat down at 6:30 and James still fell asleep on the booth for the second night in a row.
We’re back at it tomorrow with a new guide and van driver here in Luxor.
