Ruins of the Ancients

(pretty cool title, huh?)
So, after another enormous writing hiatus, we have an abundance of time to write and post in the small tourist town of Dahab. It’s a great place, with nice beaches and a comfortable atmosphere.
But as usual, I am getting ahead of myself. I’ll start the day we left the cruise ship, and headed to Karnak temple. It is really amazing as you approach, and it appears out of the foggy egyptian air. Then, you walk through a short avenue of ram headed sphinx. A large open area is next, where incredibly detailed hieroglyphs cover the walls, and even a bit of paint. There were a few side passageways, and a bunch of hot, lazy dogs. A few large statues as well.
The real highlight is the central column area. It is supposed to represent a field of reeds. If you spend your time looking at the tips of the pillars, and have a good imagination, they might look like plants. But they are covered in hieroglyphics, some painted, especially on the ceiling.
Very impressive.
There was more to it as well, but nothing very impressive.
Two days later, we headed out to the valley of the kings. Also very impressive. I could rant about the ridiculous bus at the entrance that took you about fifty meters, but I don’t want to waste the space.
We saw three tombs, which were all very interesting, especially one that was almost entirely covered in paint. The first tomb had too many people, causing us to be hot and uncomfortable, and choose less frequented tombs for the next ones. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take any pictures, so we will need to snatch some off the internet.
Emma has described them well enough, however.
The next day we left our amazingly priced and very nice and room place to go to Hurghada to meet another world-traveling family we met in Aswan. We missed them, and spent four nights in the not-so-finished city.
After that, we made it to the beautiful beach-side town of Dahab, much to our relief. We plan to spend a while here.

-Bjorn