On the way back from Luxor to Berba we first passed Dendara and visited the Temple of Hathor. Dendera is a small town in Egypt situated on the west bank of the Nile, about 5 km south of Qena, on the opposite side of the river. The Dendera Temple complex, which contains the Temple of Hathor, is one of the best preserved temples, if not the best, in all Egypt. Entering this temple from one hall to the next until you get to the Inner Sanctuary you can very well imagine how the Temple of Jerusalem looked like. A fascinating idea! The whole complex covers some 40,000 square meters and is surrounded by a hefty mud brick wall. The present building dates back to the times of the Ptolemaic dynasty and was completed by the Roman emperor Tiberius, but it rests on the foundations of earlier buildings dating back at least as far as Khufu (known as the pyramid builder Cheops, the second king of the 4th dynasty [c. 2613–c. 2494 BC]). There are also Roman …

Gerhard and Maria went with a calèche to the Karnak Temple while Barbara and I went for a walk through Luxor to the Mutrania (Bishops House). During the earlier visits in Luxor we stayed in the guest rooms of Bishop Joannes Zakarias (joanneszakaria (at) hotmail.com). But this time he was out for a conference and we did not succeed to contact him early enough. So we found the Boomerang Hotel which is a nice small place to sleep and rest in a quiet road close to the train station and close to Luxor Temple.

In the Temple of Abydos we saw the most beautiful paintings we every saw in a temple in Egypt. We really were amazed by their beauty and astonished that there are so few tourist programs coming up from Luxor to this place. The main temple is called after the god Seth with many small chapels where also Osiris, Seths brother is commemorated. Behind you find a special temple for Osiris: The Osireion. Der Mythos: Als die Götter regierten, erschlug Seth seinen Bruder Osiris, zerstückelte ihn und warf seine Glieder in den Nil. Seine Schwestergemahlin Isis fand den Kopf in Abydos und Hautfetzen in Theben. Stück für Stück fügte die Göttin Osiris zusammen, empfing posthum Horus und bestattete Osiris. Fortan sollte Osiris über das Jenseits herrschen. Sein Sohn Horus rächte den Vater und erschlug Seth. Horus wurde zum Himmelsfalken und Königsgott.

We really had trouble to find gas for  Sr. Juliana’s Toyota Avanca! Between Cairo and Minia on this 300km there was no gas station with gas of 90 or 92 Octan. There maybe were two or three with gasoline and long queues of cars, motorbikes and tractors. So with our last 10l we went from El Berba to Minia searching for gas without success, continued to the pharaonic grave site of Beni Hassan and in the evening returning to Minia with Osamas help we found a totally crowed gas station with the fuel we needed! Beni Hassans caves are not visited very often by tourists. So the Tourist Police was waiting for us and guiding us all the time from one cave to the other. The colour and the variety of the paintings inside are really remarkable!