Dr. Hauken in Egypt - February 2010

This expedition took us to Luxor and Aswan. We arrived with plain from Oslo to Hurgada, and took the bus to Luxor, arriving late at the Winter Palace Sofitel (the garden section of the fabled hotel). In Luxor it was first of all necessary to find a factotum, a fellow who combined the roles of taxi driver, body guard, interpreter, faithful assistant, photographer. And here Providence intervened on the first day. After going west with the public ferry - ticket costs 1 Egyptian Pound - we found a large number of taxis waiting for tourists to arrive. One driver was pointed out as reliable and good. So he was, and the following expeditions we did together.

First - Luxor.

The temples on the East bank came first. Then we went West and worked as systematically as possible. The west bank is so rich in monuments that one expedition could not cover it all. We leave that for October, I heard myself saying many times. Temples, tombs and royal valleys was our program. Sand seemed to have penetrated my new Nicon camera, thank Goodness we had a backup. Temperatures were high. The Egyptologists we encountered were all very kind and helpful, but the archeologists suffered from lack of general egyptological culture - especially on the issue of languages - being overspecialized and part of modern trends. Permission to do photography was easily arranged with the local guards for a reasonable baksheesh. But this was not so in the royal valleys, here no cameras were allowed. This was a major blow to our program.

Second - Aswan.

We stopped along the route at El-Kab, Edfu and Kom Ombo. The number of memory cards were growing every day. At Aswan we stayed at the Elephantine island, which in itself is a very rich archeological zone. Every day was otherwise filled with expeditions to different places: the tombs of the nobles, the wonderful new museum, Philae and Kalabsha, Abu Simbel, etc. Much was left for later visits, once the famous Cataract Palace Hotel was restored, historical hotels being one of my hobbies.

Once back to Luxor a little miracle took place: the Sofitel turned out to be overbooked, so they put us in the Palace (for the Sofitel price!). This was something of a fairy tale. One could hear and see all the famous people who used to come here: royalty, artists, writers, politicians, and all the rich ones. The last week was spent on the West bank, and doing continued photo work on the Karnak temple in the East. All in all this expedition turned out to be very successful. Saber drove us to Hurgada for the flight back to Oslo.