Luxor 4 a really short tour and a boat ride
Off at 0630 and the location was only eight minutes away – the Karnak Temple. This complex is huge and we stayed nearly ninety minutes and we never did walk to the end. Wiki quote “Approximately thirty pharaohs contributed to the buildings, enabling it to reach a size, complexity, and diversity not seen elsewhere.”

We left there to go up the street to the jetty where the felucca is moored. As with all of these feluccas, because there is hardly any wind their sails have been furled for a long time, if one looks at the lashings. So how does a felucca, dependent on sails conduct a boat ride without wind? Innovatively! Pushing off and drifting into the river a tug boat looking like the “African Queen” without Spencer Tracy at the helm comes along side and the fourteen year old crew, standing in the bow throws a line to the tug. The felucca is now towed up stream for ten minutes and the line is let go, an anchor is dropped and we wait and have a cup of tea. The water comes from the Nile and boiled up on a propane stove tucked away in the forward bulkhead. We declined but the guide – Khalifah – drank his down, I guess he is immune to the Nile River water.

Now we all wondering just how the boat will get back to the dock without a motor or sail. Easily – the anchor is lifted and it drifts downstream and with the aid of the tiller and a rudimentary oar, which was a 4*4 beam, with no paddle on the end the boat is drifted into a boat moored to the dock and the crew then manhandled the boat to where it should be.

One last request to Khalifah, the guide, “Can we stop at MacDonalds?” one of the group has had a craving for a cheeseburger ever since he saw the MickeyDs sign as we travelled the main road. A happy guy got back into the van after navigating the kiosk system and waiting for it to be cooked.

The tour is now over as we leave Luxor on a 0815hrs flight tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

A gallery of today’s pics