Karnak Temple

After waking up at 5:30 and eating breakfast, we left the boat (still in Luxor, the boat hasn't moved anywhere yet) and boarded the bus for Karnak Temple. Karnak Temple in Luxor is the largest temple in the world. The temple complex is huge, being added to by numerous pharoahs for over 1,500 years. We spent an hour and half there, but we could have easily spent days at Karnak exploring the different sections of the temple. The highlight for me was a huge hypostyle hall with 134 huge columns, each one decorate with relief drawings and hieroglyphic texts. Each column is about 30 feet in diameter and over 100 feet tall -- absolutely overwhelming. Also interesting were several obelisks, each made of a single piece of granite. There are some theories about how the ancient Egyptians raised these huge monuments, but our guide (who is an Egyptologist) doesn't belive these theories. In his view, it is still a mystery.