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Welcome to Egypt, Mom and Dad!
Monday-Wednesday - Luxor
Monday we spent the whole day on a train to Luxor.  It was a lot of sitting all in one day, but the scenery was nice and my parents got to see some green as a contrast to the brown of Cairo.  Tuesday and Wednesday we toured Luxor and returned to Cairo in sleeper cars on an overnight train Wednesday night.

Egypt through a dirty train window
Deluxe accommodations in the second class train (sorry, mom and dad, there weren't any first class tickets left). How many books can you read in nine and a half hours of train riding? The Luxor Hilton really was deluxe accommodations, especially compared to the way I usually travel!
Queen Hatchepsut's Temple carved into a huge rock face - pretty impressive!
We had a great guide in Luxor, Manel (left)

There are lots of tomb and temple pieces that still need to be put together; my mother enjoys puzzles, but I couldn't convince her this was just a giant jigsaw puzzle! (right)
Learning to read Queen Hatchepsut's hieroglyphics.
Boarding the Disney-style trams for the Valley of Kings Easier to build a pyramid when the mountain is already shaped like one! Standing in the hot, hot sun listening to a description of the tomb - it was over 100 degrees that day!
There are a lot of tombs like this one in the Valley of Kings Are we all going to fit in there? The Valley of Kings is surrounded by little hillside villages like this one.
Lunch was typical Egyptian street food - ful and tamaya sandwiches.
Manel, our tour guide, arranged for us a private boat ride to banana island. In Egypt the river is surrounded by camels, donkeys, and water buffalo.
We shared the river with a number of Egyptians going about their daily work - fishing and hauling clover across the river.  We also saw a line of tourist sailboats being pulled by a tug boat because there was no wind.
Lots of wheat - is this Egypt or Kansas? Hiking on banana island You can't go to banana island without eating bananas?
Mango, lemon, and banana trees Under the banana trees Our island guide, Nabil
Avenue of rams at the Karnak temple Ramses II and his thigh-high wife Extra pieces of the Karnak temple
A long day at the Luxor Temple - I think by the end of the day we had seen enough tombs and temples!
After the temples, we visited a small Coptic Orthodox monastery outside of Luxor, where the priest was kind enough to offer us macaroni and lentil soup for lunch.
A mummified cat at the mummification museum Cat sarcophagus Mummified alligator
Luxor temple lit up on our last night before heading back to Cairo
The train ride goes by much quicker when you can eat and sleep comfortably on the train.  We had adjoining sleeper cars and it was much more enjoyable than the regular train seats.
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