Feluca Fun and Kings of Karnak.

“Night fell on old Luxor:

Then O’er the desert, darkness swiftly crept.

And filled the distant valleys, where there slept

The spirits of a hundred Theban kings…”

  - “Night Fall: Luxor.”  By R.R. Thompson.

After Aswan and Abu Simbel I found a spot on a felucca and sailed listlessly down the Nile northward toward Luxor.  A felucca is a traditional sail boat with a large deck, but no state rooms, no bedrooms or bathrooms, just a padded deck with blankets and the company of a few others.  I spent 2 ½ days on the felucca.  The first night there were ten of us, plus the captain and one crew member.  It was fantastically relaxing.  That first night we sailed a short distance and docked the boat on the bank of the river for the night.  We played cards and chatted through the night and slept there on the deck of the boat.  The night was filled with a brisk wind blowing off the river and the orange moon loomed large and full and splotched in black shadows clouds.  We cuddled in our blanket till the cold of the morning woke us.  It was much colder in desert winter than I anticipated, and I had packed no cold weather clothes, just a simple windbreaker and a thin long sleeve shirt. 

  The food was simple and traditional, pita bread with Egyptian style pasta or rice along with vegetables.  There are large cruise ships that go down the river, covering more ground and stopping at the various temples and sites in Luxor and around.  I would rather do the Felucca.  Despite the lack of luxury and comfort, I enjoyed the relaxation and intimacy.  It was quite perfect for me. 

  After the first night, we were down to five, a Peruvian couple, a Belgian couple, and me.  It was a great group.  The day passed patiently and warmly on, zigzagging the river to catch the wind in the tall sail.  At lunch, we dove and swam.  Yes, I have both sailed and swum the great Nile of Egypt. I was sad to see the Felucca trip end.  It was blissfully calming and I caught myself in moments with that inward smile of contentment.  I am happy when I travel.  It is the only moments I find myself nearing happiness.  I love that inward smile, that sudden realization of the moment and the reality of the life I am living.  There is good in it, and excitement, and wonder, and awe.  The second night the weather was not the cold from the previous night, but a more pleasant cool and a gentle swaying of the boat.  We rose early and crossed the river.  We bade the captain and the boat adieu and took a minivan the rest of the way to Luxor. 

Luxor is filled with temples and sights.  It is the city where ancient Egypt is most on display, and I kept busy with days of walking temples and standing under tall pillars of thick stone.  I visited Kom Ombo Temple, and Edfu Temple, which was the more impressive of the two, and like the other temples was a complex of pillars and statues and slate walls carved out in an ancient writing.  One evening I made my way to the temples of Luxor as the early dark of a winter’s night set in and lights beamed in a soft glow upon the walls and carved out pharaoh faces and the tall Luxor obelisk.  It was nice to see a temple at night, the brown stone glowing.  The temples of Luxor were fascinating.  How do I describe them to sound any different than the others?  The pillars of broken walls and crumbled buildings seemed a coliseum of splendor.  How was mighty Egypt able to build such things as this?  The soft shades of sandstone gleamed in a faint orange from the soft lights, an orange that grew and faded tall in to the sky to an eventual black of dark night and speckled stars.  I walked around alone, thoughts of the temples, of the grandeur they must have been, of the magnificence they still are.  I tip-toed quietly through halls and courtyards, as though to imbue a sense of reverence, despite the crowd of tourists in their hustle and bustle.  I walked out to the back of the temple, behind broken walls where it seemed no tourist ever came, and stood staring through the columns and arches at the city of Luxor on one side, and the ancient temples of Luxor on the other.  I appreciated the contrast, though certainly I came for the ancient, for the mighty and revered, and I stood, I sat, I stared, and I listened to the very walls, hoping to hear the sound of light softly echoing through the carved out hieroglyphics in a subtle reverberating tone.  I listened to the hum and drum of the breeze and the pattering of footsteps and the chorus of dozen languages, and when I had my fill, I left the temple and walked the city grounds and through the bazaar and up and down any road I could find.  I spent much of another day doing the same, walking aimlessly and purposefully in an attempt to become semi-lost.  It is what I do, wander and walk with no other reason than to feel and hear the pavement under me and the sounds and sights of a city that I may never know again. 

  Luxor has many great sites.   One day I rose early and headed over to the west bank of the Nile to The Valley of the Kings.  That is where the pharaohs had their tombs carved out into the mountains.  Wow!! They are impressive, and it is amazing to think how one man could have so much time and effort and labor put into such an elaborate and extravagant burial place.  The longer the man served as pharaoh, the bigger his tomb was, for once a pharaoh died, the laborers would quit working on his tomb and begin working on the new pharaoh’s tomb.  The tombs are massive caves and tunnels hollowed out of limestone with colorful paintings still intact and the intricate carvings seen everywhere else.  No camera were allowed anywhere on the site, and what a shame.  Can you imagine perfectly rectangle tunnels leading a hundred yards or more in to, or steeply down a mountainside, with series of cave-like chambers and everything finely smoothed, carved, painted and chiseled in fine and delicate pictorials?  Yes, another great site of Egypt.  I walked down in to several of the tombs, the boy pharaoh, Ramses, and others, and it continued to amaze me at what power these pharaohs must have had, what gods they must have both seemed and thought themselves to be.  What arrogance! 

  I stayed out on the west bank visiting the other great sites and temples and met a Japanese family living in Kenya, as the father was the Japanese Ambassador there in Kenya.  The eight year old daughter took a liking to me and we were fast friends and spent most of the afternoon playing games and talking with me.  She never seemed to run out of energy or things to talk about, but she was a cute kid, and her mother wished I could be a teacher at their school in Kenya.  Realizing what my students were like in the U.A.E., I wished for the same. 

  In Luxor I also visited the complex of the Temples of Karnak, 65 acres of pillars and stone walls and piles of crumbling rock and statues.  It was a maze of temple sites, beautiful in its size and its fading authenticity, how the crumbling pieces blended in to fine walls and heavy pillars lined in row upon row of massive stone.  I was a mouse in search of cheese, slowly scurrying through hallways and tunnels and courtyards and temples.  There was too much to see at Karnak, and there, wear and tear and the battling of millennia showed its toll in the piles of battered and beaten stone, and the crumbled rocks spilled in to a scattering of dust.  There is a statue there where it is said if you walk around it three times you will get lots of money.  If you walk around it five times all your dreams will come true.  As I finished my fifth lap, the Peruvian couple jokingly shouted that six times around and I would find a girlfriend, so I made haste to finish one more go around.  That was 4 ½ months ago, and I haven’t found her yet.  I stayed there at Karnak passing the hours through the jigsaw puzzle of temples.  The weather was warm and fine with a calm wind that swirled the sand and dust in slow sweeps.  The sun added a pleasant heat of a true desert winter day and the towering stone added the thrill of adventure, experience, and opportunity.  I am a hoarder of these things, devouring them wholly, selfishly, entirely, and writing mere memos of remembrance tied up with silly snapshot photos, inadequate and plain.  I constantly imagine how much better all these things could be done, and envision what new experiences I will find to hoard and gulf down.  Luxor though was finished, and I started off on a painful 19 hour bus ride squished in to the row with the least amount of leg room, despite being the tallest person on the bus.  After a tiresome and cold night of cramped legs and banged up knees, I arrived in Dahab on the Sinai Peninsula with the aqua waters of the Red Sea, where I will begin with the next entry. 

“Meditation in Luxor.”

  By Dibakar Barua

Liquid under the charred brow

of the valley of death

the fabled Nile gleams.

It’s the eye of Horus

shedding a tear for old temples,

peering, joyless, at hot air balloons.

Snake charming pipes regale

tourists on a cruise boat;

the soul grows heavy

with images of bursting planes --

and wary of the judgment

of Osiris – the monster Amemit

eating a meaty, raw heart.

Luxor’s stone tree of life still glows;

one thinks of the ochre moment

of Bardo that will erase all colors,

Nile blue or a childhood rice field green

of billowing waves, and invite all

to a merging with the one --

like pink portals that beckon

to a feast at the teats of Nut.

But the sky and the earth are

a backdrop. We walk the pathways

of desire and fear with a hollow

feathery heart bent on ascension.

This body with its meat sacks,

its iterative propensities,

belongs to none, and this mind that spins

endless spidery filaments

catches nothing.