Sorry for the late post. I was actually away on a two week trip to Antarctica, but the internet was weak and I wasn’t able to upload any photos. I’m back to share with you some images and thoughts from my visit to some of the best preserved ancient ruins on the planet.
Continuing with the story of my round the world trip completed in January. I left the Serengeti in Tanzania and took an interesting route to Egypt. Tanzania is located in the central east of Africa, so the flight time was about 4 hours. For some reason (unlike other times I made this flight), I did not fly straight north over Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. I was looking forward to this flight, since Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White and Blue Nile rivers. Instead, I curiously headed northeast over Kenya, western Somalia, eastern Ethiopia, Djibouti, Eritrea, and then straight into the middle of the Red Sea. Yes, this is the area where the Houthi rebels are currently firing rockets at ships (not seen). (I later asked the jet’s captain and found out the diversion was for safety reasons; apparently flying over Sudan today is deemed “unsafe.”) The diversion wasn’t unpleasant, as it gave me a happy highlight: flying over the Afar Triangle, where the Arabian Plate separated from the African Plate to form the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
Afar Triangle Flyover
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| The red line shows the flight route from Kilimanjaro to Luxor. The geological annotations are mine. Perfectly recreates the shape of the southwestern tip of the Arabian Peninsula (where the red jet’s route turns left) It matches the shape of the inner Afar Triangle, where the Arabian Plate was attached to the African Plate. Therefore, all the solid ground shown in Afar is volcanic rock dating back more than 5 million years. The depression since Arabia took off Northeast From Africa. This map is in the public domain and provided by the DEMIS Mapserver. |
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| We caught a glimpse of the summit of Kilimanjaro, the “Roof of Africa,” at an elevation of 19,341 feet. See photos from my trek to the summit in 2014 here. |
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| (5 photos) The shot below A winding dark grey lava flow Here’s what the app revealed |
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| Eastern Ethiopia Gorge |
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| You can see that the fault blocks of volcanic rock are arranged in a staggered pattern. Northwestern tip of the Afar Triangle |
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| When the Arabian Plate began to move away from Africa 5 million years ago, these blocks faulted and rotated. |
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| The volcanic center and associated lava flows are depicted here. Flyover Country The above app – Awesome! Note the towering volcanic center and the dark lava flows radiating from it |
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| A tanker ship travels north in the Red Sea toward the Suez Canal. |
Egypt
Finally arrived in Luxor, Egypt!
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| This is the way to the Pharaonic temple of Luxor, excavated from beneath thousands of years of Nile sediments. The ancient road is located at least 5 metres (16 ft) below the modern city, which can be seen on the far left. |
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| The foundations of the Pharaoh era are buried inside the temple. The lower part of a small window. A mosque was later built in the 8th century. built Based on this foundation, excavations in the 20th century The foundations of ancient Egypt were exposed. A visit to Luxor involves visitors walking below the present-day surface of the earth. About the recent deposits in the Nile. |
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| Luxor Temple entrance at sunset on January 16, 2024 |
Karnak Temple in Luxor
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| On the west bank of the Nile, tributaries carve canyons called wadis into the limestone. Shale of the Theban Formation, of Eocene age, approximately 50 Ma, deposited in the Late Epoch. The Tethys Sea. In this wadi, Egyptian kings were buried in tombs carved into the limestone. Our jet group was allowed to visit the Valley of the Kings after sunset, after the hordes of tourists had left. We returned to our hotel in Luxor and had the valley all to ourselves! This photo of the Theban topography is Drive into the valley. |
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| Authorities are alternately opening and closing various graves to reduce the inflow of outside air into the cemetery. Tomb. This is the entrance to one of the other tombs in the Valley of the Kings. |
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| Inside the tomb are hieroglyphics depicting boats on the Nile. |
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| The mummies of the kings and their grave goods were buried here. Some of the tombs are It was attacked during the Egyptian period, during the reign of Alexander the Great, and again during the reign of Napoleon. |
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| Entrance to Tomb KV62, the archaeological name for King Tutankhamun’s tomb. Wikipedia has a great article about the tomb. It explains how the tomb was robbed twice soon after the young king’s death, but that it has since undergone many restorations. The tombs of Ramses V and VI were later built to the west of this one. These excavations further concealed the entrance to KV62, which was not discovered in modern times by Howard Carter. Until 1922! |
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| This is the real King Tut, photographed up close, lying in his tomb. I was really shocked to see the young King Tut. King isn’t here, he must have been “touring” at an exhibition the last time I was here. This was before. |
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| I didn’t tickle his feet, but I was tempted… |
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| Self-portrait in the tomb |
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| The eastern wall of the tomb. What a wonderful visit to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings! |
Our visit to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings was amazing. But our trip to Egypt wasn’t over yet. After two nights in Luxor, we got back on the jet and stopped off in Cairo for a day to visit the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx at Giza. Yes, a 90-minute flight to Cairo, 7 hours on the ground in Cairo, and a 6-hour flight to Morocco. This will be the last post of our trip.
Giza and the Sphinx
Again I sat on the left side of the jet and had amazing views of the Nile Valley from high up. It was a great morning for flying!
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| A view rising southwest from Luxor, with the plateaus and wadis of Egypt’s Western Desert on the horizon. You can see how the tombs of the Valley of the Kings cut into the plateau. During the Eocene, this part of Africa It was flooded in the final stages of the Tethys Ocean. |
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| View of the Nile Valley south towards Luxor |
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| Before the completion of the High Aswan Dam on the Nile in 1964, everything shown in green was The annual floods of the Nile. These floods provided the fertile silt that nurtured Egyptian high culture. The Nile irrigated an expanding area of its floodplain, and the cause of these floods was a mystery to the Egyptians. The flooding began in June and continued into August, a typically very dry period in Egypt. However, melting snow Eruption of the Rwenzori Mountains in Ethiopia causing flooding. See this article from Saudi Arabia. Aramco Magazine (May/June 2006 issue) by John Feeney describes the last flood that inundated the Nile in 1964. I organized a short lecture about this last flood for the guests aboard the jet. |
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| We land in a smoggy Cairo – population about 23 million and growing like weeds (in 1950 the population was 2.5 million). |
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| At airports, jets rarely land on the jetways as they usually stay on the ground for two or three days. At night, during the seven hour stop, we were able to disembark at the runway and take a bus to the terminal. |
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| 10% of Egypt’s GDP is linked to international tourism, and the government is actively ensuring the safety of tourists. Visitors. Many guests were wondering if the visit was safe, as security guards were following us for an hour. Driving from the airport on the eastern edge of Kairos to Giza on the western edge, I took this photo from our van. |
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| The Great Pyramids of Giza on ground level! Truly incredible. |
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| But for me the highlight of the visit was the visit to the Sphinx, something I’ve seen many times before. But it didn’t go as planned on January 18. Notice the platform to the left of the Sphinx – this is where visitors come to stand. Normally you can’t see the monumental statue, but you can take the footpath on the right to get down. All the way up to the giant statue. |
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| A close-up of the Sphinx, the oldest known monumental structure in all of Egypt, dating back to around 2500 B.C. The period known as the Common Era, or formerly B.C. (Before Christ). The Sphinx is therefore approximately 4,500 years old. |
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| Our visit also included a lecture. Between the Sphinx’s Paws A gift from renowned Egyptologist Dr. Zahi Hawass. Amazing! |
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| This type of opinion is not usually available unless you are part of a special group. |
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| Lecture venue |
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| A rare view of the Sphinx. What a special day to experience this. After the lecture, I approached Dr. Hawass and said: When I told him I was from Flagstaff, his eyes lit up and he smiled: “Oh, I gave a talk in Flagstaff and I loved that place!” Of course, I knew this because I had attended his talk as a keynote speaker in Flagstaff 18 months earlier. Science festival. |
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| Southwest view of the Great Pyramids of Giza |
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| Northwest view |
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| The desert skies on the edge of a population of 23 million are magical. |
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| Leaving Egypt after a day in Giza. It will be an unforgettable day! Check back next week for the final post of this series. Our round-the-world trip begins in Marrakech, Morocco! Thank you for reading this far! |
