01Africa · Egypt

Egypt

Cairo and the pyramids, then the Nile south to Aswan and back — Kom Ombo and Edfu after dark, the locks at Esna, Karnak and Luxor under floodlight, and the painted tombs of the Valley of the Kings.

The Great Pyramids of Giza at golden hour, warm desert light raking across the ancient stone under a clear pale sky — Giza, Egypt

From the notebook

A river, and everything built along it

Almost everything in Egypt sits within sight of the Nile, and the easiest way to see it is to travel the way people always have — along the water, stopping where the temples are.

What stays with me isn't only the scale of the stone. It's the small things beside it: mint tea in the Aswan market, boats queuing for a lock, the sun going down behind the palms.

Stops

CairoChapter 01
GizaChapter 02
The Egyptian Museum, CairoChapter 03
AswanChapter 04
Kom OmboChapter 05
EdfuChapter 06
Esna, and the NileChapter 07
LuxorChapter 08
Valley of the Kings, and Deir el-BahariChapter 09

Chapter 01 · Cairo

Cairo, on the river and in the street

Cairo arrives all at once — bridge traffic over the Nile, floating restaurants lit up in red and green, and the Cairo Tower glowing above it all.

By day the city is a market. Whole streets disappear under tables of clothes and shoes, and lunch is grilled chicken, bread, tahini and a glass of hot tea at a small table under a café umbrella.

The Nile in Cairo at night, a lit bridge crossing the water with floating restaurants and the Cairo Tower glowing red — The Nile after dark, from above

A busy Cairo street market seen from above, with tables of clothing stretching along the road beneath apartment blocks — The street market, from a window

An outdoor café with Coca-Cola umbrellas, carved wooden benches and yellow tables in a sunlit Cairo lane — A café in the old quarter

A café table laid with grilled chicken in foil, flatbread, tahini, salad and glasses of tea — Lunch, served all at once

Our travel group posing for a photo beside a large granite pharaoh statue in a hall — The whole group

Chapter 02 · Giza

Built for eternity

The entrance wall says it plainly: welcome to the Pyramids of Giza, built for eternity. A few steps on, another: man fears time, but time fears the pyramids.

Then you are out on the plateau, and the scale stops being a sentence and becomes a single block of stone taller than you are. Camels wait at the edge of the sand. The Sphinx keeps its own crowd.

A stone wall at the Giza visitor centre reading Welcome to the Pyramids of Giza, Built for Eternity — Built for eternity

A wall inscription reading Man fears time, but time fears the pyramids — Man fears time

Ken and Becky standing together on the Giza plateau with three pyramids and resting camels behind them — All three, behind us

Ken standing before the Great Pyramid with the sun flaring above its shoulder — At the foot of the Great Pyramid

Becky leaning against a single limestone block nearly as tall as she is — One block, for scale

Becky standing partway up the huge stepped blocks of a pyramid — Each step is a wall

Becky posing with her hand aligned to the tip of the pyramid of Khafre behind her — Holding up the point

The Great Sphinx with a pyramid behind it and a crowd of visitors along the viewing wall — The Sphinx, and everyone else

Chapter 03 · The Egyptian Museum, Cairo

Rooms full of granite

The old museum is long halls and high windows, statues standing where they have stood for a century, sarcophagi resting on plain wooden frames.

The pieces are enormous and matter-of-fact: a granite falcon, a polished sphinx, a seated scribe reading the scroll across his knees.

A long museum hall lined with columns and statues, a granite falcon on a plinth in the foreground — Down the long hall

A large granite falcon sculpture sheltering a small pharaoh figure, backlit by tall windows — The falcon of Horus

A dark stone sphinx with a pharaoh's face on an inscribed base behind a rope barrier — A sphinx indoors

Becky standing beside a large stone sphinx in a museum gallery — Beside the sphinx

A seated granite statue of a scribe with a scroll across his lap, lit against a red wall — The scribe, still reading

A museum gallery with colossal standing statues of Akhenaten beside painted columns — The Amarna gallery

Carved granite sarcophagi resting on wooden supports in a museum hall — Sarcophagi, waiting

Chapter 04 · Aswan

The dam, the island, the market

The High Dam holds back a lake that runs to the horizon — flat blue water on one side, switchyards and the narrowed river on the other, and a tall lotus monument standing over the whole thing.

Downstream, feluccas cross in front of the sand hills of Elephantine Island. In town, the market is cool under its awnings: dresses on hangers, cauliflowers stacked on a rug, and coffee and mint tea at a table on the pavement.

Lake Nasser stretching to the horizon behind the Aswan High Dam, with a sandy embankment in the foreground — Lake Nasser, from the dam

The Aswan dam switchyard with power lines and the narrowed Nile beyond — Where the river is let through

The tall concrete lotus monument at the Aswan High Dam against a clear blue sky — The lotus monument

A felucca under full sail on the Nile with the sand hills and tombs of the west bank behind — Elephantine Island, under sail

Walking through the covered Aswan bazaar past hanging dresses and shoe displays — Into the bazaar

A crowded market street in Aswan with shoppers gathered outside a butcher's shop — Morning shopping

Our group walking under the wooden roof of the Aswan souk past bags and scarves — Under the wooden roof

Cabbages and cauliflowers stacked on a patterned rug at a market stall — Cabbages and cauliflower

A glass of mint tea and a cup of Egyptian coffee on a green table — Mint tea, and coffee

Chapter 05 · Kom Ombo

Kom Ombo, at blue hour

We reached Kom Ombo as the sky went deep blue and the floodlights came on. The temple is double — two of everything, one half for Sobek the crocodile, one for Horus the falcon.

Next door, the crocodile museum keeps the rest of the story: mummified crocodiles laid out in rows on sand, alongside the jars they were buried with.

A couple posing at the entrance to the floodlit Temple of Kom Ombo under a deep blue evening sky — Arriving at Kom Ombo

Carved columns and reliefs of Kom Ombo lit from below at dusk with visitors walking between them — Lit from below

The full facade of the Temple of Kom Ombo floodlit at night with a crowd gathered in front — The temple after dark

Rows of mummified crocodiles laid out on sand in a dimly lit museum case — Crocodiles, in rows

A mummified crocodile beside a line of clay burial jars in a museum display — Buried with their jars

Chapter 06 · Edfu

Edfu, after sunset

Edfu is the best-kept of them all, and it is best at night, when the floodlights pick the carving out of the flat stone.

The great pylon rises out of the dark with Horus on the lintel and a thin doorway of light running all the way through to the sanctuary.

The floodlit pylon of the Temple of Edfu at night with visitors walking toward the lit doorway — The pylon at Edfu

The carved colonnade of Edfu lit gold against a deep blue night sky while visitors photograph it — The colonnade, lit gold

Chapter 07 · Esna, and the Nile

The locks, and the light going

At Esna the boats queue for the locks, and while you wait, small rowing boats come alongside piled with blankets and scarves — the traders throw their goods up onto the deck and you throw back what you don't want.

Then the gates open, the ship slides through, and the evening does the rest: palms in silhouette, the sun dropping into the treeline, another cruise boat sliding past in the gold.

Two blue rowing boats loaded with textiles seen from a ship's deck alongside the green hull — Traders at the lock

Passengers lining the rail of a cruise boat watching the approach to the Esna locks — Everyone comes out to watch

A Nile cruise boat entering the Esna lock chamber with a crane on the wall — Into the chamber

The Nile at sunset with a cruise boat in the foreground and the sun sitting on a line of palms — Sunset on the Nile

An orange Nile sunset behind palm silhouettes with a cruise boat passing along the far bank — The last of the light

Chapter 08 · Luxor

Karnak and Luxor

Karnak is the hall of columns — a forest of them, painted at the top, each one wide enough that you lose the person standing on the other side. Outside, an obelisk, and an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes in a long patient row.

Luxor Temple we saved for the evening. The pylon and the obelisk go gold, the colossi of Ramesses sit in their own shadows, and the Avenue of the Sphinxes runs off into the town lights with a lamp at every plinth.

Looking up at the painted columns of the hypostyle hall at Karnak against a blue sky — The hypostyle hall

Becky standing at the base of an enormous carved column at Karnak, arm outstretched — One column, arm's length

Two great columns at Karnak framing a painted architrave and a strip of blue sky — Between two columns

A granite obelisk at Karnak rising against a deep blue sky beside a ruined wall — The obelisk at Karnak

A carved obelisk standing on a paved court at Karnak with palms and visitors behind — Carved on all four faces

A row of ram-headed sphinxes along the approach to Karnak with columns behind — The rams of Karnak

Luxor Temple floodlit at dusk with its obelisk and seated colossi, an orange sky behind — Luxor Temple at dusk

The pylon of Luxor Temple at night with statues of Ramesses and the obelisk lit from below — The pylon, after dark

The Luxor obelisk lit gold at night beside a colossal seated statue of Ramesses — Obelisk and colossus

The colonnade of Luxor Temple lit at night with visitors walking among the columns — Inside the colonnade

Becky with arms raised in front of the lit colossi and columns of Luxor Temple — Arms up at Luxor

Ken and Becky standing together before the statues and columns of Luxor Temple at night — The two of us, Luxor

The Avenue of the Sphinxes at night, lit by a lamp at every plinth, running toward the town — The Avenue of the Sphinxes

Becky with arms raised standing on the Avenue of the Sphinxes at night — The whole avenue to herself

Chapter 09 · Valley of the Kings, and Deir el-Bahari

Down into the tombs

The tombs run straight down into the rock, and every surface is worked — columns of hieroglyphs on the walls, boats and stars across the ceiling, the colour still in them after three thousand years.

Back out in the light, Hatshepsut's temple sits in its cliff on the far side of the valley. We found a wall to sit on and took the group photograph there.

A tomb corridor in the Valley of the Kings, walls covered in hieroglyphs and a painted ceiling, visitors filing through — Every surface carved

A descending tomb passage with a painted astronomical ceiling and inscribed walls — Down the passage

A painted tomb wall showing rows of figures and solar barques in red, yellow and black — Boats across the underworld

Dense columns of carved and painted hieroglyphs covering a tomb wall — Three thousand years of paint

Our group sitting on a stone wall with the terraced temple of Hatshepsut and its cliff behind — Hatshepsut's temple, behind us

Highlights

The Pyramids of Giza and the Sphinx
The Egyptian Museum in Cairo
The Aswan High Dam and the Aswan bazaar
Kom Ombo and the crocodile museum
The Temple of Edfu, floodlit at night
The Esna locks and sunset on the Nile
Karnak, Luxor Temple and the Avenue of the Sphinxes
The Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut's temple

More of the Egypt story — and the rest of the Africa collection — continues in the journal.

Open the Egypt segment in the Africa journal →