What am I?

I have a dirt clot for an outer shell and I am wormlike on the inside. I am about an inch long and I use my tongue to crawl along the walls and floors. What am I? Am I poisonous? Is the sole reason for my existence to pester Amanda?

The Big Walk

This year at Durban Girls' High School was the 127th Annual Pixie Hardman Memorial Big Walk. The theme for this year was 'From the ridiculous to the sublime, we shine in 2009.' So, the girls were supposed to dress up either ridiculously or sublime. This is what they looked like:

Felucca Ride on the Nile

We decided to take a felucca ride on the Nile while we were in Luxor. There were tons of boats but not many customers since summer is the slow tourist season.

Here is our captain, Mansour, and his crew aboard the 'Humpty Dumty.' Misspelled, repainted, and still misspelled.

There wasn't enough wind to get us sailing, so we had to hitch a ride from the tug boat.

So did these other boats...there were 3 of us in tow at once.

Mansour and the other captains all love Bob Marley. The feluccas all had a Bob Marley flag or a picture on the sail, and they sang some tunes along the way.
We floated to Banana Island...we didn't get off the boat, I am sure that would have been an extra charge.

The Karnak Temple

The Karnak Temple was built 1300 year ago and is the largest pharaonic monument in the country after the pyramids.

Lining the road are more sphinxes with ram heads and lion bodies, a symbol of the god Amon.

This is a huge wall at the front of the temple. People have carved their names into the side of it--some appear 1/2 way up the wall because that is where the sand level was at the time.
The temple was left unfinished for some reason. you can see how they took the rough stones and put them in place and then carved them into smooth pillars.

The hypostyle hall has 134 giant columns. You can still see some of the colors of the heiroglyphics.

This is a picture of the sacred lake.

During the height of Theban power, Karnak was the most important place of worship. Here are some of the columns and you can see an obelisk in the background.

This is a statue of a giant scarab beetle. You are supposed to walk around the scarab 7 times for good luck.

The Luxor Temple

This is the Luxor Temple and it is over 4000 years old. It is also known as the ancient site of Thebes.

Here is one of the obelisks


Here is a statue, I think it is Ramses II. You can see his wife in the lower left corner.

Here is a Muslim Mosque that was built inside the temple. It was built when sand covered most of the lower portion of the temple. You can see where the bottom of the building was and where it is now that all of the sand has been removed.
All Egyptian statues either have the feet together or the left foot forward. It is to signify one step towards heaven.

The Luxor Temple at sundown.

Sphinxes used to line the road from the Luxor Temple to the Karnak Temple. Now, a row of them remain with local roads cutting through the middle of the temples.

You can see the sphinxes lining both sides of the road.

The Valley of the Queens

This is the Valley of the Queens...very similar to the Kings, but this is where the wives, sons, and daughters were buried. Still the same desert, still very hot.

I was able to see the tomb of Ramses II's 9 year old son and a 5 mo. old fetus mummy. The bones were still mummified-it was very interesting and morbid. The tombs were very colorful and had lots of heiroglyphics on them. They were much brighter in color than the Kings tombs.

The Temple of Queen Hatshepsut

This the the temple of Queen Hatshepsut and it lies between the Valley of the Kings and Queens. She built the temple for herself, and no one was ever buried there. There are lots of caves dug all around the mountain, but supposedly nothing is in them.

Hatshepsut ruled Egypt for a while and was buried in the Valley of the Kings. Towards the end of her reign she changed her appearance to look more like a man. Weird. Here are some of the painted/carved walls outside of the temple.

A bird sculpture outside the temple.
A guard, perhaps.

The Valley of the Kings

We took a night train from Cairo to Luxor...sleeping sitting up (again) for 4 of the 6 nights of the trip (not the best idea...neither is going to the Sahara Desert in the middle of the summer, but we all learn our lessons sometime.)

The Valley of the Kings was built after the pyramids, but they still used the 'natural' pyramid formation of the mountain.

They buried their kings and treasures here, camouflaged inside the mountain, so that thieves wouldn't detect the tombs as easily as they did the pyramids.

There are 64 tombs that have been discovered here, the most famous is that of King Tut in 1922. It was found untouched and with all of its treasures still inside. The goods have since been removed and placed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It would have been wonderful looking at all of the stuff, but the museum had no AC and it felt like it was 500 degrees inside. There were around 74 kings during this time, so there still might be a few tombs that haven't been discovered!

King Tuts tomb was closed for 'research' so we couldn't go inside. But, I was able to take a picture by the sign with my sweet tour group shirt on! Our leader made us wear them, it was a little annoying and I felt quite dumb.

The Pyramids at Saqqara

Here is the first pyramid every built. It is a step pyramid with 6 steps that lead towards heaven. (Only 5 steps can be seen from this pic.)

The city in the background is Memphis, it used to be the capital of Egypt and it is the oldest imperial city. The west bank was used for the pyramids and cemetaries, and the east bank was where people lived. You can see the Nile Valley in the middle.

The pyramid on the left is the bent pyramid and is 97 m tall. It was built at an angle of 54 degrees and proved to be too steep. So, they changed the angle halfway through so that it wouldn't take forever to build. The pyramid on the right is the red pyramid and is 101 m tall. It is said to be the first perfect shaped pyramid built at an angle of 52 degrees.

There are over 100 pyramids in Egypt. From Saqqara you can see a lot of them--faintly on the left side you can see the pyramids at Giza.
Here is the entrance to the pyramids at Saqqara.

The Pyramids at Giza

Here is a picture of the 3 pyramids at Giza, they are the most famous ones. The middle pyramid is the only one with the smooth surface still in tact--it is towards the top.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu or Cheops--it is 137 m tall (used to be 146 m) and weighs over 60 million tons.

They began building The Great Pyramid in 2570 BC and finished in 2589 BC--it is over 4, 500 years old! The entrances to the pyramids are all on the north faces. We were able to go inside the middle pyramid and see where the treasures were burried. No treasures remain, they were all stolen by tomb raiders thousands of years ago.

The middle pyramid is The Pyramid of Kahfre or Chephren and stands 136 m tall. The smallest pyramid is the Pyramid of Menkaure and is only 62 m tall. This probably signified weak pharonic power.

They pyramids look small from afar...until you walk up next to them and see how large the stones are! This is a huge trench on the east side of the pyramids. It was used to bury the kings boats for use in the after life.

These 3 small pyramids (mounds) are the tombs of Khufu's wife, mother and sister.

Camel rides are a must at the pyramids--there are tons for hire. I was able to sneak a quick picture before the owner saw and demanded payment.

The Sphinx is located directly east of the middle pyramid. It has a lion body and a human head of Chephren. It was built to protect the tombs/pyramids and was also defaced by some bad guys along the way.

Maybe he spent too much time picking his nose and it eventually fell off?