Day 6 Wednesday Nov 29

Flight to Luxor, Luxor pass purchase, Luxor West bank Farida apt check in, Ramesseum

CAIRO APARTMENT CHECK OUT

We packed up, took pics of the apartment, then dropped keys in the box at the entrance passage of the building.

CAIRO AIRPORT

Took uber to the Cairo airport. We had already checked in online. We had no checked bags. Airport had very few people. We got our boarding pass printed at the Egyptair counter. She did not even look at our cabin bags. We spent some relaxing time at the deserted couches and then boarded our 12 noon flight.

LANDED AT LUXOR

We had arranged over whatsapp driver Hamdi [Helicopter].. he texted his friend will be at airport with a sign when our plane from Cairo landed at 1.

We walked out as we had only cabin bags, no sign, no friend in sight.

We called Hamdi, a guy came walking to greet us and took us to his car. We saw the helicopter signs and realized it was Hamdi himself... not much resemblance to his whatsapp pics.

LUXOR PASS:

Hamdi said he'll drop us at the westbank apt, that should be all for the day. I was adamant we needed to buy the Luxor pass.

He gave several excuses, that VOK won't issue, they need passport copies, pics etc, which will take time for us to produce. It'll be better if we get it in the morning the next day.

I showed him the folder with all the necessary stuff i had ready in our daypack.I asked him to drive to Karnak.

He said it'll be too crowded.

Let's see, it's almost 2, I told him.

As expected nobody in line, it took some 20 min to get the pass issued with all their formalities. We paid 125usd each... we had 50% discount as we surrendered our Cairo passes after taking a pic [just as proof we had had them]

this is the Luxor pass with discount price of 125. At special tombs the guardian was surprised by the price and in Seti1, he even called up his supervisor to verify this is OK. At Nefertari too, he had a long discussion and a tour guide interpreted what we explained to the guardian in Arabic. Even the tour guide was asking us if we had student discount!! Surprising it is not widely known about Luxor pass being available at discount if we have a used Cairo pass

Hamdi then boasted we could not have done it without him!!

RAMESSEUM

We asked to see Ramesseum before going to our apartment for checkin.

Ramesseum is the memorial temple (or mortuary temple) of Pharaoh Ramesses II ("Ramesses the Great",built by Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 13th century BC.

Unlike the massive stone temples that Ramesses ordered carved from the face of the Nubian mountains at Abu Simbel, the inexorable passage of three millennia was not kind to this "temple of a million years" at Thebes. This was mostly due to its location on the very edge of the Nile floodplain, with the annual inundation gradually undermining the foundations of this temple . Neglect and the arrival of new faiths also took their toll: for example, in the early years of the Christian Era, the temple was put into service as a Christian church

Surviving records indicate that work on the project began shortly after the start of his reign and continued for 20 years.

Oriented northwest and southeast, the temple comprised two stone pylons (gateways, some 60 m wide), one after the other, each leading into a courtyard.

Beyond the second courtyard, at the centre of the complex, was a covered 48-column hypostyle hall, surrounding the inner sanctuary. An enormous pylon stood before the first court, with the royal palace at the left and the gigantic statue of the king looming up at the back.

Only fragments of the base and torso remain of the syenite statue of the enthroned pharaoh, 19 m (62 ft) high and weighing more than 1000 tons. This was alleged to have been transported 170 mi (270 km) over land. This is the largest remaining colossal statue (except statues done in situ) in the world.

the pylons and outer walls are decorated with scenes commemorating the pharaoh's military victories and his dedication to, and kinship with, the gods. In Ramesses's case, much importance is placed on the Battle of Kadesh (ca. 1274 BC); one block atop the first pylon records his pillaging, in the eighth year of his reign, a city called "Shalem", which may or may not have been Jerusalem.

The scenes of the great pharaoh and his army triumphing over the Hittite forces fleeing before Kadesh, as portrayed in the canons of the "epic poem of Pentaur", can still be seen on the pylon

Thirty-nine out of the forty-eight columns in the great hypostyle hall (41 x 31 m) still stand in the central rows. They are decorated with the usual scenes of the king before various gods.