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This is a report of a trip to Egypt and Jordan, undertaken during May 1992 by myself (from Luxembourg) and my best friend, Marc (from Belgium).

Egypt, part 2

Pierre.Flener
2004-04-03 18:32:20

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Day 12: ... - Edfu - Luxor
Back to Edfu at 8am, we disembark, but not after a hearty farewell to Mohammad and Hegazi, for whom we write an enthusiastic letter of recommendation. The Horus Temple complex is superbly preserved, and overshadows everything seen so far, except Abu Simbel. We split a service taxi to Luxor, and all check in at the Grand Hotel, a famous travelers' haunt, recommended to us by the Hotel Marwa staff.
The rest of the day is spent on strolling around Luxor: the temple downtown, though impressive, can almost entirely be eyevisited from the outside. One of its twin obelisks is today adorning the Place de la Concorde in Paris. The souks are quite lively and colorful, so that's where we hang around most of the time. Suddenly, in a totally untouristed area, a man invites us for tea. Juma, a Nubian, is a tailor, and insists that he is not interested in money, which is usually a bad sign. He sounds honest, though, and lectures us on his philosophy of life. We accept an invitation for tomorrow's dinner with his family. But at times, he is very weird.

Music
Egyptians are crazy about music. Tape stalls, often selling pirate copies, are all over, and you hear - endure? - the current smash hits many times every day. On our trip, it is Hakim - a proponent of al Jeel, a modern urban music including elements of disco and rap, like Algerian Rai - whose album is best-selling, even among tourists. Lu-lulu-lu-lulu and Lucky-Lucky-Luck (phonetic approximations) are omnipresent in our minds. Few people seem to listen to more classical Arab music, but they absolutely love you for identifying Umm Kulthum, Mohammad Abdel Wahab, Farid el-Atrache, or Fairuz on the radio.

Day 13: Luxor - Theban Necropolis - Karnak - Luxor
In order to beat the crowds and the heat, we ride our rented bikes to the Nile in order to catch the first locals' ferry at 6am. Once on the west bank, we cycle across interesting ...