Going back to Cairo.......

...but not before checking out the back streets of Luxor which were not quite as impressive as the temples!!

There is a 3 km walk between the Karnak temple and the Luxor temple .....
the Avenue of the Sphinxes .... most are broken and a lot were covered by buildings... but the majority  have been excavated over the past several years.

...round the corner from Karnak temple...... life goes on as usual........

 Luxor museum is also very interesting..........  modern with extremely well presented exhibits...

This was a huge double alabaster figure of the God Sobek and Amenhotep III..........

.... a sandstone wall from Karnak temple.....

... and some beautifully decorated sarcophagi.......

.... model boats from King Tutankhamun's tomb....

Waiting at the airport for our flight........... in a very long slow moving line! And there were only 2 flights checking in!!

...the flight back to Cairo was to give us an extra day there to check out Memphis and Saqqara.......

Continuing along the Nile to Luxor.....

Cruising on the Nile is slow......but our boat had plenty of relaxing areas where one could enjoy the scenery and boat movement on the river banks.....

 We passed larger similar boats going in the opposite direction......

 and also some smaller feluccas.... either moored on the bank...

.....or passing us by.......

We were due to spend the night just south of Luxor.... so that we could take an early morning hot balloon ride! This was something I was initially very wary of doing..... but all others were interested... so I went along....
We had to be on site before 6am so had to leave the boat around 4.30am!!! We had to cross the river by boat as the only bridge across the Nile in this area didn't open until 6am!
We were not alone.......

....the balloons started to be blown up in the dark...

and before dawn we were up and away.......

It was quite hot!!

Dawn came soon after we were in the air.....

... which bathed the  Temple of Hatshepsut complex in an amazing light.....

Seeing the whole Valley of the Kings area from above was superb!

We drifted slowly above the cornfields......

and eventually landed in one.......

...with a little help from the ground!