Click photo to enlarge
Annetty Lastovicka by the Great Pyramids. Photo by Morgan
Hewland.
In this week's readers postcard Morgan Hewland takes a
tour of the River Nile and ancient Egypt
Cairo is a crazy city, where drivers make six lanes out of a
four-lane road, spend more time looking in their mirrors than
at the way ahead, and alert other drivers to their presence
by a series of horn toots, one short, two long, and others
each with their own meaning.
It is where the Nile resembles an open sewer in parts, and
where handcarts, donkeys and fat-tailed sheep make other city
roads look like farm tracks.
It is where the locals are experts in removing from the
unsuspecting tourist his every last Egyptian pound, by any
means possible.
And yet it is a wonderful, exciting city with enormous
history, and where the Step Pyramid of King Zoser can be
found, built some 5000 years ago, preceding those at Giza and
the pyramid built by Cheops by many centuries.
And then there is the mighty Sphinx.
In the Cairo Museum can be found the treasures from the boy
king Tutankhamun.
Then there are the many mosques and bazaars throughout the
city.
Luxor is a laid-back, friendly city standing on the east bank
of the Nile, on the site of the ancient city of Thebes.
With its large number of ancient temples (e.g.
Karnack), monuments and tombs, it can be described as perhaps
the greatest open-air museum in the world.
Across the Nile on the west bank lies the Valley of the
Kings, where you will find the tombs of the Theban rulers,
including Tutankhamun, King Seti and others.
You may also see the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, the only
woman pharaoh to rule ancient Egypt.
At Edfu-Kom Ombo,you can view the Temple of Horus and houses
of the Byzantine period.
Then the famous Kom-Ombo temple, completed during the reign
of Ptolemy VI (181BC-146 BC).
This temple was shared by two gods, Sobek and Haroeris.
Aswan is Egypt's sunniest southern city, located 100km south
of Luxor.
This is where the Nile flows through amber desert and granite
rocks, round emerald islands covered in palm groves, and
where the waters can be crowded with Nile cruisers and
feluccas (Egyptian sailboats).
Of all the temples of Egyptian antiquity, among the most
spectacular and best preserved are the temples of Abu Simbel.
The master builder was Ramses II (1279BC-1213BC), one of
Egypt's greatest pharaohs.
