May 8th, Luxor

Well, On one hand, yesterday (May 7th) was pretty uneventful. I spent most of the day in a bus on my way back to Cairo. On the other hand, the bus back to Cairo was much worse shape than the one I took to Sinai. I had a broken seat the entire trip, the ac did not work and the bus broke down about 2 hrs outside of Cairo.We sat on the road for about 30 minutes and I was wondering how long it would take them to get another bus out to us. but to my surprise, the driver with the help of about 6 passengers was able to fix the bus and get it running again. I have no idea what was wrong with the bus or how they fixed it but it got me back to Cairo which was the important thing. I also got to share the gospel, well a little bit. The man sitting next to me happened to speak English very well. He was a scoutmaster in Egypt (they apparently have a boyscout organization) and a Roman Catholic. He asked me if I was Christian and I said yes and he asked what denomination. He had never heard of the Mormons so I gave him the church's missionary web address, just for his curiosity. I got the train to Luxor that night without any problem and I arrived in Luxor at 7:00 am. Here we go!

May 8th

Luxor has been a blur. I have done so much that it will be impossible to write everything. I will try to keep this short but I have just done so much. Well, to begin with I will first tell you that I have mixed feelings about Luxor. The monuments and museums left me speechless but the people here really really bothered me. I have never been so hassled, molested, pushed, yelled at, and lied to by so many people in such a short amount of time in my life. The second I got off of the train I had no less than ten people yelling at me to either get in their taxi or go to their hotel. I was surrounded by people shoving fliers and brochures into my face. When I told them that I was not interested they would get angry at me and yell "Why not!?" and sometimes curse. I can usually handle the hassling but it has been constant ever since I got here. I met with another backpacker and he said he shared my sympathies. He said that most tourist people only have to deal with the hassling from the bus to the monument. But because we are traveling amongst the people, there is no escaping it. It is constant. But I will leave off all that bad stuff and focus on the amazing, because overall, Luxor is just that, Amazing.

My first step, was the temple of Karnak. Well, I really do not know how to begin. The stuff really is just beyond description and I do not want to come of as melodramatic in my feeble effort to give words to my thoughts. The place is enormous and the kind of effort that went into building the structures is incredible. I was spellbound and spent most of the morning and early afternoon there. My next stop was the Temple of Luxor. This part of my trip was particularly enjoyable because I found a tour group from England and decided to tag along. They did not mind at all and we actually had some good conversations. The guide who was traveling with them also knew his stuff. I finished the day at the Luxor Museum which does not have as much stuff as the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, but is none the less amazing. Sorry that there are not that many fun stories to tell, I spent most of the day in museums and temples that are relatively close to where I am staying. But tomorrow I plan to confront the West Bank head on. I will be traveling a lot in just one day and that should offer unusual and unexpected circumstances. Tomorrows E-mail should be much more entertaining. Until then.

Sam