Craig's Photos - Edfu Temple

We woke up on the ship in Edfu and headed to the temple for an early morning tour. We were briefed beforehand by our tour company to take a horse cart to the temple, and negotiate the "standard fare" of 40 pounds, round trip. Nothing like having to negotiate before breakfast. Craig took the lead and did a great job at being firm on the 40 pounds. The horse cart itself was cramped for 4 passengers, but the ride was short. Craig sat next to the driver on the way over and then Jacob did the "co-driver" duties on the return. They both commented that the horse poop was flying in their face. A nice morning pick me up! Our driver was quite the celebrity of the town and shouted and gestured to everyone as he guided us to the temple. Here we are outside the first pylon of the temple, which is dedicated to Horus, the falcon-headed god, and built from 237 to 57 BC (just like yesterday in Egyptian antiquity terms).

Even though this is not the most famous temple, the scale was immense.

It was interesting to tour a temple in the early morning light and not be broiling when not in the shade.

This temple, like most others, was "discovered" by Europeans in the 1800s who then chiseled their names into the walls, statues, basically anything that was rock. This made us realize that the practice of defacing places to memorialize your visit is not a recent development. For the record, we did not chisel our names anywhere in Egypt.

This temple was full of twists and turns and staircases. That made it extra fun to explore.

This is a cartouche, which contains the name of a god or other ancient celebrity. Our guides called them name tags or business cards.

We didn't hear Jacob ever say "I'm bored".

Here we are in the courtyard after walking through the first pylon. The walls are just towering.

Thanks to Nancy for this shot of the guys.

After our tour we caught the horse cart back to the ship and enjoyed a nice breakfast. Our ship featured the usually continental breakfast of rolls, pastries and a bit of fruit, plus our favorite...Mr. Omlette. Jacob tried an experimental mixture of coffee and tea in an attempt to wake up completely. He never repeated the experiment so I guess it didn't work.

We cruised for the rest of the day to Luxor. We alternated between napping, cooling off in the rooftop pool, and sitting in the shade and enjoying the mist (cranked out through pipes in built into the covering above us).