Egypt with Family: Hot Air Balloons, Valley of the Kings, and Royal Mummies

This is part two of our Egypt trip. Read part one here.

Just a fair warning, there are a LOT of photos in this post! So glad to finally have this trip all documented though. It is one that I think will always hold in a special spot in our hearts.

Day Three: Flying to Luxor

After those days in Cairo, we had a 4:30am wake-up call to get to the airport to take off for Luxor. I thought it was so interesting to see this desert from the air: all green around the Nile River (can you see it in the distance?) and then nothing but sand for as far as you could see.

And then we were off for a jam-packed day exploring so much beauty in all the ruins.

Karnak Temple

This place! The beginnings of the Karnak Temple started over 4,000 years ago (!!) It is the largest ancient religious site in the whole world. And believe me, it was HUGE. Not only huge with these gigantic pillars:

But it was also huge because it spans over 200 acres. It was expanded and added onto by pharaoh after pharaoh (approximately thirty of them in all) for over 2,000 years.

How I love moments like this where Elle is explaining how things look to her little sister who can’t see them anymore:

Our friends were so very good to her too.

Makes me so very grateful.

It was hot, even early in the morning, so we crammed into any little spaces of shade we could find to keep us from melting as we learned so much.

Karnak Temple was destroyed and rebuilt, and I thought that was so fascinating. Can you see all the pieces that have been put back together below?

And here:

Our guide knew another guide who is working on the ongoing laborious efforts to keep rebuilding, so we got lucky enough to have him take us to the literal fields that went on forever of more blocks and parts of statues they are working on restoring.

How they figure out how to put something that destroyed back together baffled my mind. I mean, who’s going to figure out where that toe goes??

There was lots of explaining from both of our guides, and there was a point I had to take a picture of Max’s phone trying to understand all the information from AI, ha!:

Lots to take in on a hot day as you can tell:)

But I promise, it really was so fascinating.

The Great Hypostyle Hall

I think we all loved the Great Hypostyle Hall the most, filled with its 134 giant pillars.

We basked in that place (and the shade all those pillars provided).

Check out these ancient carvings:

There were walls and walls of them depicting religious scenes with pharaohs performing holy things in the company of Egypt’s gods. I found lots more information about the carvings if you’re interested in checking it out.

As you can see, those carvings are everywhere!

Love these girls!

And an interesting side-note: we happened to run into, amidst those thousands of people cramming in to experience that ancient wonder, Dave’s COUSIN and her husband.

AND Abby also ran into her doctor who delivered Ada. How is that for a small world??

A Good Break

It was a genius idea from our tour guides to have some down-time in the middle of the hottest part of the day for lunch and swimming back at the hotel. Right on the Nile River.

Luxor Temple

At golden hour this was MAGIC. Those huge statues all lined up, the sun transforming them to glowing gold. I’ll let the pictures tell the story.

Loved learning how all these ancient temples were set up.

The “Holy of Holies:”

Letting the sun settle on the horizon as we examined the replica of the boat the ancient Egyptians used to bring the God A-mun down the avenue from Karnak to Luxor.

Some of Elle’s film photos:

Day Four: Hot Air Balloons and the Valley of the Kings

We had another 4:30am wake-up call to get out for our much anticipated hot air balloon rides. Oh boy, we had been looking forward to this. I think Lucy was the most excited of all.

We took these colorful wooden motorboats across the Nile (behind our hotel) in the dark of the morning:

And drove to the site where all those giant colorful balloons were getting filled up by the glowing blasts of fire against the horizon just lit up by the first drops of sun.

Then we lifted off in wide-eyed awe of where we were right at that moment:

That ride was dreamy. Sure, we were standing in a big, oblong basket filled to the brim with 32 people (!!! Four in each of the eight sections):

But it was purely magical and seemed wonderfully reverent, even with that many people.

We floated over all those ruins in the Valley of the Kings below, the sky going from pink to gold to dawn all around us. So much excitement from all our kids.

There was something about that vantage point with nothing but some fire and some fabric lifting you to see the world from a different perspective that does something good to your heart.

There were a few moments when my anxious kids (Claire and Max) got a little claustrophobic and Claire had to curl up in a ball on the floor for a minute when we went really high, but everyone including them were purely delighted at this once in a lifetime opportunity to be right there, right then.

Yes, there’s something about the perspective from a hot air balloon.

Valley of the Kings

There are 64 tombs in the Valley of the Kings (as of the current count), and only 12 are open and explored.

It’s unfathomable to me to think of finding this spot, and realizing what it actually was after thousands of years being untouched. Finding hidden openings carved into the rock under the mountains literally FILLED with Egyptian hieroglyphics, art, messages and yes, treasures.

All the treasures have been moved out by now, but those walls! HOW in the world did they even carve out those mountains and make the places inside not only structurally sound but roomy and perfectly shaped? In such a short amount of time? These are not caves, they are incredible rooms with walls and steps and ALL kinds of messages painstakingly carved out. In perfect lines. I can’t write a straight line on an unlined paper let alone think of carving perfect lines of hieroglyphs from top to bottom of 12-foot walls. I honestly just can’t even comprehend it.

Even the ceilings were carved and painted and so beautiful.

You would never know these tombs are here when you’re on the outside.

But then you go down into those mountains and find these vast caverns of art and beauty.

We got to go into 3 of the tombs: Merenptah, Ramses III, and Ramses IV.

We peeked into King Tut’s tomb as well, but since we already saw all the treasures at the museum we concentrated on the other tombs here.

Merenptah’s Tomb

Ramses III

This one was more colorful with the painting on the ceilings I mentioned.

And deep carvings that have lasted the test of time along all the hallways from floor to ceilings.

Incredible. HOW did they carve and make these rooms dug into the mountains structurally sound??

Ramses IV

This one also had completely covered ceilings. Think of all the work this took all those thousands of years ago!!

I mean…

Awe in every corner.

Temple of Hatshepsut

One of Egypt’s most successful pharaohs was a woman who ruled for over 20 years.

How cool is that?

Her mummy was located to verify her legacy. But her tomb was partially destroyed by her successor, Thutmose III, who attempted to erase her from history. Her story is so fascinating if you want to learn more click on that link.

We got to visit the Temple of Hatshepsut, and we got to do it with all these strong women:)

…And more who were apparently exploring other parts when I took that photo.

The temple is built into this mountain.

It was destroyed thousands of years ago but is now almost 75% restored.

These are just little snippets from a Smithsonian magazine article.

And I just feel like I want to keep them here with all the photos.

She fascinated me and we got to see her mummy later back in Cairo.

Medinet Habu

Oh this temple was an unexpected treasure, so filled up with temple symbols, ancient washing and anointing, a divine embrace, and even Heavenly Mother (at least in my interpretation). I loved it.

We took our little wooden boat right back across the Nile (yes, we were across that river for a LONG time!),

…packed up at the hotel, and headed back to Cairo for our last day in Egypt.

Day Five: Back in Cairo

Back in Cairo (at a different hotel) we found this place called Junkie Burgers for dinner with just our family, Max maneuvering Lucy through all those crazy uneven sidewalks and crossing crazy streets, finding three rickety tables we could squish together. Plastic gloves come with the burger for cleaner eating — genius. A stop for ice cream en route home, admiring those towering kids I get to call mine.

We found out in delight that the steam room and sauna was still open and I joined the girls in there for a little bit to debrief from the day.

The Cairo Museum

I thought I was done with museums (fascinating but we had already been to a lot of them!).

But we loved the Cairo Museum.

They took a whole slew of the stuff from this museum when they built the GEM (Grand Egyptian Museum I talked about in my first Egypt post), so we figured it would be more sparse.

But it was packed to the hilt with so much cool stuff, and interesting symbols of our own religion.

I loved this sculpture on the right below:

It was carved to represent the unification of upper and lower Egypt. Both parts are depicted intertwined and becoming stronger through that unity. It just so happened that one of my best friend’s daughters was getting married that day (I was so sad to be missing the wedding), but I sent her this picture thinking how beautiful the intertwining of marriage is and how that has the potential to make us stronger with that synergy.

I also loved that this couple loomed large there in the main room.

(You don’t see many females in ancient art, so I loved it.)

Hatshepsut

Here’s Hatshepsut again:

Statue of King Khafre

This is perhaps one of the most famous statues there:

It depicts the famous King Khafre, and I’ll let this little plaque tell the background:

Most fascinating to me were the compass symbols they put on the clothing of the dead to help them find Heaven again.

There were SO MANY ancient relics there, can you see them just stacked in case after case?

Yow.

Here are our kids discussing the amazingness:

This one on the left is super famous, and all of these have lasted the test of time carved of wood.

Amazing!

The golden fingers from mummies:

Oh I have so much more to say about this place, but please look up the website for more because I’m out of time!

It’s so crazy to me how all religions have so much in common. From the Holy of Holies to so many different ways to connect with the divine.

The Royal Mummies

Our last museum was The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.

It held room after room of royal mummies — Ramses II, Seti I, Hatshepsut, and so many more. And that, I have to say, was so fascinating.

There was this 35,000-year-old skeleton. I can’t even comprehend.

There were no photos allowed in the actual mummy part of the museum. But here’s the walkway walking down into that labyrinth of dark rooms you could go through to see those bodies preserved from thousands of years ago in temperature-controlled glass boxes.

A bit more about the mummies to give you more of a flavor:

That was the highlight of the museum, but there were other cool things like this birthing chair that we loved:

Postcards on the way out:

A Mother’s Day Lunch

The kids declared our lunch on a porch at the museum looking over Cairo our Mother’s Day lunch (since we were all flying out in different directions the next day, which was Mother’s Day). They all took turns telling me what they love, which is so nice, GOSH I love being their mom. But I was glad to turn the conversation to Abby and her mothering. She is just the best mother who braved this whole trip so incredibly well with her heart tethered to those babies far away. What a Mother’s Day that was.

The Bazaar

Our last stop was the Bazaar.

Oh boy. Honestly we are not really shoppers in our family, so we didn’t know what to expect. But it was quite an experience I must say. This was “Old Cairo” and I loved walking deeper and deeper into more crowded areas filled with every kind of trinket you can imagine.

My favorite was watching Grace joke with one of the store owners we were trying to buy alabaster from.

By the end we were all looking a bit dazed, in and out of all these interesting little booths.

It was a funny, grand way to end our last excursion in Egypt, and we did end up with some pretty great keepsakes. Including an essential belly dancer outfit for Murphy. You can tell how excited Max is about that. Ha!

Fun to do a little post-party-wrap-up with these guys as our trip drew to a close. Love them so much!

Our Last Night

That last night we sat out on the back porch of our hotel under the most gorgeous sunset for dinner, that table filled to the brim with my favorite people, everyone telling their favorite part of the trip.

And Dave and I took a little date-walk along the river. Our hearts full of gratitude.

And then: a 12:45am wake-up call for our 4:15am flights — all of us heading in different directions, back to real life. A quick goodbye to all those people and a full heart for the time we got to spend with them in that fascinating part of the world.

Things I Want to Remember

• Lucy is amazing. I loved watching her maneuver this whole trip with low vision, linking arms with her siblings to show her the way. I’m just so incredibly proud of that girl and how she FEELS what she cannot see. More on that coming tomorrow.
• I LOVE that I’ve been reading about the tabernacle in the Old Testament (for our Come Follow Me study at church) at the same time as learning about the temples in Athens, then in Egypt, THEN in Rome (on a layover en route home). I love the idea of the Holy of Holies and how each temple stretched through the centuries of time had their own.
• Girls switching clothes every night, their relationships, with Abby too. The way the silly squabbles morph into more love as kids get older. The way Max makes the most witty and funny comments. And his pure gentlemanly respect of his wife and protective love of his sisters.
• Amazement from my kids that as a student on study abroad thirty years ago I climbed the Great Pyramid at night.
• One of our secret weapons was using AI to re-explain things to us “like we are ten years old” after each site — it helped so much to have a second pass at all that information in simpler terms.
• Watching my towering girls walk through those giant pillars dwarfing them, the light hitting perfectly creating halos around them.
• This trip wasn’t perfect. There were lots of tired and grumpy moments, so much to learn, squabbles here and there, stress trying to make sure Lucy was ok. But there is something about being together, ALL of you, and having that luxury of TIME that is so incredibly special.
• Bonding with our friends — we really didn’t have a lot of time to talk amidst all the learning and late nights/early mornings. But I loved looking back at all those awesome kids learning from each other on the bus. So grateful for these good friends and all the history we share.
• So much of our culture has been shaped by Egypt. From religious ceremonies to words we use. Fascinating to try to grasp all that.

SO MUCH GRATITUDE for all this it makes me want to cry.

Read part one: Egypt Family Travel — Pyramids, Memphis, and the Wonder of It All