Edfu Temple

We're back on the ship and are now cruising South (towards upper Egypt) to Kom Ombo. We had a fantastic trip to Edfu this morning. It was hot, of course, but not stifling. I'm sitting up on the sun deck in the shade sipping a hibiscus tea (karkade) (sp?) that's quite refreshing and apparently full of vitamin C. People are lounging, reading, dipping in the pool and taking photos of the banks as we slowly sail upstream. It's quite relaxing.

Upload speeds are bit slow right now, but I'll try to post some photos of our trip. The first will be of the outer entrance to Edfu Temple. There are two or three more entrances to the temple. This is the largest and the outer-most entrance. Our guide, Yasser, explained that the temple forms a type of pyramid laying on it's side. The floor gradually elevates as you move from the outer wall to the inner-most shrine--the holy of holies--where the representation of the god lived. The ceiling also gradually gets lower and the width gradually narrows which all works together to create the effect. The focal point is obviously the shrine which is in the oldest part of the temple.



I didn't get any photos of the inner-most shrine today, so I can't post those images, but I do have a very nice photo of a very exotic woman who looks a whole lot like Shelia--because it is! She looks like she could blend in with the locals except for the golden locks peeking out from her scarf. She's so beautiful, much more so than the temple!



This next photo is of Dan, Shelia and Gomaa (pronounced "Jo-Ma)--one of our servers on the ship--a very nice man. His name is Arabic for Friday, the Islamic holy day of the week, the day of the week that he was born, hence the name. I look forward to getting to know more the staff as the week progresses.



Already, the staff is warming up to our group. It didn't take long for the maitre di (sp?), (the spell-checker for this blog isn't working--sorry), Moustafa, to start joking with the group. Our first meal on board was lunch yesterday. As we entered the dining room, he proudly told us that the entire lunch was vegan and that nothing was made with butter. He said if anyone asks if there's butter in something, they'll have to go sit outside! :-) He was so cute!

Well, they just "gonged" us to lunch, I better wrap this post up. More to follow.

Thanks for visiting and much love to you from Egypt!

Stuart