Today we began our day by driving to the town of Kom Ombo and visited the temples there which are dedicated to the crocodile God Sobek and the falcon God Horus. The temple was beautiful with some great scenes depicted on what remains of the walls. We also went to the crocodile mummy museum where there are lots of mummified crocs. Very interesting. More driving and more temples. We then visited Edfu Temples. More amazing structures, more amazing scenes depicted on the walls. Much of these scenes were defaced by the conquering Arabs who attempted to erase the human forms from the scenes. One of the unique things here are the colours that can still be seen in some parts. Despite the passage of thousands of years the fact that some colour remains is pretty incredible.
After that we had what is becoming a regular lunch - felafel sandwiches, which we all enjoy (except for Julia who cannot have them due to allergies) . Mayer has promised us the recipe as they are different to the chickpea felafel we are used to.
Once in Luxor province we visited a Planeterra project in the village of El Tod. Planeterra is a non profit foundation created by G to make a positive change in people's lives. There are amazing projects all over the world. People can donate online to Planeterra and G matches every donation dollar for dollar up to $30 000. The project in El Tod is a community library, nursery school and education centre. It's awesome.
After eventually arriving at our hotel Mayer took us to the pharmacy so Mike could discuss his neck issue with the doctor there. He is trying a new medication and is asleep as I type (no moaning or groaning). Fingers crossed he will sleep all night.
For dinner we went to a local restaurant "El Zaeem" for the national dish - Kushari. It's a mixture of rice, pasta and lentils. You add extras like fried onion, extra lentils, tomato sauce and hot sauce. Oh yum. It was fantastic! And cheap. It cost about 25 Egyptian pounds which is like $5AUD. Crazy.
After dinner a few of us went and had coffee at a local coffee shop. These are generally in the open, visited only by men (or foreign women), where they smoke shisha pipes. The amount of nicotine in these pipes is the equivalent to about twenty cigs - just about blow your head off! We all just stuck to coffee or tea.
The weather has been a bit warmer than I expected. It's meant to reach about forty tomorrow so we have an early wake-up call - 5am! We need to get to the Valley of the Kings before it gets outrageously hot.