Saturday, January 9, 2010. Luxor

This morning, we left Shepheards Hotel in Cairo for the Mercure in Luxor. Actually, it's not called the Mercure any more, but I doubt you care. It's a nice enough hotel, centrally located on the Corniche, almost opposite the Mummification Museum with the Luxor Museum to the north and Luxor Temple to the south. If you're lucky, your room may have a view of Hatshepsut's temple of Deir el Bahri across the river on the West Bank. If you're not, you can still watch the ongoing excavation of the Avenue of Sphinxes that runs between Luxor and Karnak Temples. My room has a balcony which looks west to the soft pink Theban hills.

We arrived amid a certain amount of consternation from some of the Texas people. Apparently, this was not the hotel they had explicitly and repeatedly asked to stay at. There is another Mercure down the Corniche, which is closer to shops, restaurants, and Luxor Temple. Apparently, it has rooms that look down onto Luxor Temple. Ooh! That would be very nice. But we're here, and the hotel is perfectly decent, and besides, there's nothing to be done about it. I did a cursory amount of unpacking since we'll be here for about a week. I flipped on the TV and found “Gladiator” starting (in English with Arabic subtitles). Maximus was just sold to the gladiator school when we lost power. It stayed out for over half and hour, so I decided to take walk instead. It's about only a ten minute walk to Luxor Temple where I tried to figure out the best times to take pictures so the sun's rays would pick out the reliefs and inscriptions. Carrying on, I hit up Gaddis Bookshop (my favourite in all of Egypt, I think) where they were also watching “Gladiator”. By then, he was back in Rome, fighting other gladiators. You've got to give the people what they've come for.

Along the way, it became clear why we were not staying at the other Mercure which has views of Luxor Temple. It's been demolished. In fact, a lot of things have been demolished. The Mina Palace hotel (The Insider and I stayed there in 2000) has also been knocked down, as have a lot of other buildings along the Corniche. And the grass and trees that used to be a quiet park to the west of the Temple has been replaced by a tiled public plaza, sadly lacking any shade at all. When I walked through it, it was empty. That could be because the new entrance to the Temple is immediately adjacent (on the east side). The old entrance was from the west, which was not ideal either because it required buses to stop on the Corniche (a two lane road), forcing other traffic to deke around them into the oncoming lane. It's all part of the Luxor Master Plan to redevelop the area between Luxor and Karnak Temples, an effort to better accommodate the growing number of tourists. It's progress, I guess, but the change makes me feel tired and old.

I passed the Temple, and found a small shop to buy water. Gummy eyes and a low-grade headache are my body's way of telling me that I'm not getting enough to drink. I get 3 L which should do for a while. I hope. Squinting out of a pulsing head is no way to see Egypt.

Sandy spotted me wandering into the hotel restaurant and invited me to join her and Rick for supper (they had just ordered). As I sat down, I mentioned that I had been there for lunch as well. Sandy asked if I could recommend anything, and told her that I thought the Italian Omelet was vile. “That's what I just ordered,” she said. Oops. Several minutes of fancy weasel words fall out of my mouth in an effort to downplay my remarks, which had been mainly played for laughs. “Maybe it just wasn't what I had been hoping for,” I concluded said, lamely. “What were you hoping for?” she asked. I have no answer for this. The food comes, and we go on to talk about other things.