Our second day in Luxor was another jam-packed one. Unfortunately the day before I had gotten pretty sick and was throwing up most of the night, but that did not stop me from enjoying the city! The morning started with a boat ride down the nile from our hotel to the Karnak temple, which was a gorgeous way to start the morning.
our group on the boat! Notice my amazingly nutritious but completely necessary breakfast in hand....a bottle of sprite haha
The Karnak temple complex was amazing! It is HUGE and was built over 4,000 years ago. It was focused on the worship of the fertility god Amun and is one of the largest ancient worship site in the entire world! Even though I was still not feeling great, I loved every second of our tour there.
the Egyptian Holy of Holies
From the Karnak temple we took a carriage ride over to the Luxor temple. The carriage ride was fun, but it was so so hot! We were literally melting. The Luxor temple was built by Ramses II and Amenophis III and used to be connected to the Karnak temple by an avenue of sphinxes. Like the Karnak, it was massive and amazingly detailed. It is mind blowing that such impressive structures were built so long ago and without any modern day technology!
the girls in the carriage, and yes that is a poster of Bob Marley in the roof of our buggy
After Luxor we went to the Souke, which is basically a huge egyptian bazaar. They have some great things for even greater prices, but the shop owners are out-of-control aggressive, which makes the whole experience not as enjoyable. We definitely got a taste of the local culture though and had a great time together! The absolute steals we found didn't hurt either...
That night we took a sleeper train from Luxor back to Cairo which was...an experience to say the least. It was definitely one part of my Egypt trip that I would be perfectly content to never repeat for the rest of my life haha. It was super dirty, cramped, and in the words of my roommate Karlee "what a prison cell should look like". We arrived in Luxor at 5:00 the next morning after a very sleepless night, which was partially due to the fact that no one dared to climb inside the beds! So overall, definitely not my favorite form of transportation, but definitely worth it to be having this once-in-a-lifetime experience in Egypt :)
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