in the middle east

I hope you're not getting bored with all these pictures of Egypt. We've been back in Jerusalem for a month now, but we still have more share with you all. Just two more Egypt posts, and then we'll get back to talking about life here and now.
After Aswan, we headed up to central Egypt, the city of Luxor on the Nile. This was the ancient capital of Egypt for many centuries, and thus there grew up around it dozens of ancient monuments from the royal families. Tombs, temples, statues... it's all here in Luxor. The city is divided by the Nile, and both West and East banks have major sites. So we took two full days here, one on each side of the river. The temples were magnificent, as were the sunsets. We found the town itself to be less pleasant than Aswan or Cairo. The main industry of the town is tourism, and thus every corner and street is full of vendors who are more than happy to take your money. They were quite aggressive: someone wanting to sell you a t-shirt, statue, or boat ride will walk along side you for a block or two. Thus, it was hard to have any quiet moments along the waterfront, or really anywhere in the town. Since our hotel had a nice roof-top patio, we spent quite a bit of our "down time" up there, swimming, reading, and overlooking the town and the Nile. There are many amazing things to see here in Luxor, and we couldn't show you everything. But here is a sample of what we thought were the coolest things: Click Here.