On The Road Again...

The journey to Dendara & Abyddos took us 3 hours away from Luxor, so it was quite a trip back...in more than just time spent sitting! Our private tour was organized through Mara house & was shared with two young women from England. They were good company & once again we enjoyed sharing the excitement & alarm at some of this country's idiosyncrasies. It was also good to share that 3 hour journey 'home', a route which was as incredible in visual input as the treasures we had seen in the ancient temples. This is when I sincerely wish that there was a slot in my head, behind the eyes, where i could have inserted a SD card to capture what I saw to share with you. I took LOTS of photos out the window, but even with the fastest shutter speed, I have had to delete 98% of them. We were just going too fast on an uneven surface to catch the glimpses on film! So, you will have to bear with me while I list SOME of them! Donkeys pulling very old, obviously hand made wooden carts....men in long grey or brown galabeyahs (dress like garments worn over clothes) with brilliant white turbans (how they remain so white in a dusty, dirty environment beats me!!).....houses built of handmade mud bricks, wattle & daub or the newer & cheapeeer limestone bricks....half finished houses, apparently the father builds the bottom floor for himself, the next floor for his son & leaves the top unfinished so that his son will extend the house up for his family....these undressed exteriors often have one section of deco ratio, eg, the balcony wall.....decorations could be stripe (orange,red & turquoisse popular), basket weave pattern (chocolate brown, saffron yellow and white popular) or patterns almost like a wall pare effect in very bright colours....a mosque painted candy pink...a beautiful coptic monastery respellendant with obvious wealth surrounded by the mud huts of the farmers....irrigation ditches markedly cleaner than Saqqara along which lush fertile crops thrive...the most enormous cabbages I have ever seen...sugarcane...alfalfa for animal feed...bananas....little mud brick shelters roofed with palm fronds on the intersection of roads, with men just sitting inside...animal shelters in a similar style...camels WITHOUT bedouin textiles and tourists aboard(!!!).....small brightly colured & decorated trucks LOADED with people, on the roof & standing on the back...trucks transporting a cow & calf, donkeys & even a camel.....a mother bathing a child in one of the cleaner irrigation canals....a wire strung across the canal for propelling a small boat across from one side to another...& in the towns tuktuks, highly decorated and being driven by children! And that is just a snippet! Travel is at high speed & irratic. the driver of our minivan had fabulous reflexes, & thankfully avoided hitting a small puppy who wasn't used to the roads yet!! It was wonderful...& although physically inactive... exhausting!