A Trip to Egypt: Day 3

Day 3 on our trip started early at the temple of Kom Ombo. The kids were in desperate need of sleep so Jari went with the tour group alone on this one while the kids slept in. After the kids woke up, I gave them a snack and took them out to explore before the tour group returned to the boat.

Jari may one day add some comments, all I know is that they worshiped the crocodile here

Here she waved at us as we played (see below)

Apparently, they mummified the crocks.

Okay here is my perspective (Fred)

After waking up we left the boat and walked up to the temple which we could see from where the boat was docked. We were again harassed by locals selling cheap merchandise and after moving around them we found a safe space to play "Mr. Fox, Mr. Fox, what time is it?" and the locals gathered around and watched us play this curious game. It was good to have some downtime for the kids to run around and play without me worrying they would fall off the boat.

After breakfast, we enjoyed some views of the river.

The wind made it quite cold so the kids made the best of things by grabbing swimming towels and wrapping up in them.

I can see why crocodiles would love to live in this area. looks like there are lots of places to hide and wait for people or animals to come and drink

Lots of archaeological sites along the way

A fun element of the trip was how the housekeeping staff would make animals out of the towels for the kids. I am not sure if they do that for everyone or just those with kids.

The next stop was a trip to the Edfu Temple of Horus. The ride in was... fun.

There was a large group of carriage drivers that had come to pick us up, but it was not much use without the key to the gate that separated us from the carriages. So we had to wait for a little while then the carriages took off in a thundering herd. Our small tour group was the last group to go. We had to drive through the town of Edfu was interesting as it was a mixture of horses, donkeys, cars, and other pushcarts.

The best part of the trip was when Camille decided she had had enough of Zachary (does not take much, these two are frienemies) and kicked him in the face, and gave him a bloody nose.

She had no remorse

Horus was the god of the sky and was considered the protector of Egypt. He was the son of Isis and Osiris. The god Osiris was the ancient Egyptian god of the dead and the god of the resurrection unto eternal life. Horus is depicted as having a falcon head.

Here are a bunch of pictures in no specific order. I spent about 70% of my time dealing with Camille and/or Zachary and missed out on what the tour guide was saying.

Pharaoh's crown as depicted here had 2 parts:

1) the upper round/oval-shaped portion which represented northern Egypt

2) the headwrap was draped down to the shoulders and had the cobra on the front which represented southern Egypt.

To wear both portions meant that you were ruling unified Egypt. The snake/cobra was a symbol of protection

Hazel and Horus

The temples were originally painted in beautiful colors. Of course, little remains of these colors but you can see some here.

Clearly, Camille was interested in the history of the region.

She had fun running and getting hugs. This clip was originally taken in slow motion by Hazel but it does not seem to upload in slow motion. It is still cute though.

Much of this temple was buried in the sand. When the Christian crusades came through these temples served as caves and they think that the black on the ceiling may be from fires or candles being burnt here. That is not known for sure though.

Found throughout the temple are crosses that were carved into the stone faces. Don't confuse these with what looks like a cross with a loop on the top as seen in the photo above. That is the Key of Life.

A picture of the counsel of gods sitting in judgment

Here is something interesting. This piece of granite (quarried from Aswan) not only has inscriptions in it like all the stone but was polished in a way that scientists to this day cannot explain or replicate. It was polished so well that the sun reflection makes it appear as a crystal/mirror. There have been multiple attempts to reproduce this polishing but even with the assistance of modern technology, no one has been successful.

Charlotte taking some pictures.

Hazel hanging out with Horus.

From the main hall of the temple, there were two passageways that lead up to a rooftop ceremonial area where only the Pharaoh and High Priest were permitted. The passageway up takes many turns: left, left, right, left, right, right, left... etc to symbolize the altering climb of a falcon as it climbs up into the sky. The second passage was the descent and it comes directly down in a steep path to represent the rapid descent of the falcon as it approached its prey. The passage down is not open to the public and the passage going up is only partway open. this picture was on the way up.

A picture of Isis, holding the Key of Life in one hand and a Lotus flower/reed in the other. It was said that her favorite smell was that of the Lotus flower.