A Balloon Flight 2-10-2006 Over The Nile

By Bob Van Leer

(Luxor, Egypt, Friday, Feb. 10, 2006) - We started the day with an early morning balloon flight over the Nile River valley.

Betty decided to pass on this flight, but I got up at 4:00 a.m. to go. Just getting to the balloons was a production. We left our riverboat, the Stephanie, in vans and drove a few miles. Then we boarded small boats and crossed the Nile. Breakfast was served, and then another van drive to the actual takeoff site.

The balloon envelope is of some very thin material. This was spread out on ground cover sheets and the open end held open. Large gasoline-powered fans were started up and filled the envelope with air. This only took 10-15 minutes. Then the gas burner was fired up and aimed inside the partially-inflated balloon. The balloon filled up and raised up. We climbed into the basket gondola. It was divided into five compartments, one for the pilot and four for passengers. There were 11 passengers in our party. After we were all in the balloon lifted off and started to soar. Soaring is quiet, but the gas burners have to be lit every few minutes and this is noisy. The balloon is huge, but I couldn't get a size.

Mostly we stayed low, just a few hundred feet up. The highest we got to was 1000 feet. The pilot said the balloon was capable of going to 5000 feet, but for this needed clearance from the airport tower.

The drift over the valley was fascinating. We could see a number of temples from the air and the small towns were like relief maps. The lush green crops of the valley really showed up. A lot of sugar cane is grown here. Curiously many, if not most of the houses had an unfinished second floor without a roof. One explanation I was given is that taxes on a house don't start until it is finished.

We were up only about a half-hour and landing was uneventful and we retraced our steps, including the boat ride, back to home base.

We were back just in time to go on a tour of the Temple of Karnak. Our program director, Hussein, said the main Karnak temple is 65 acres and the whole site is 133 acres. He said it is the largest religious site anywhere.
The temple was added to over a period of 2600 years. The earliest work was 2400 B.C. and the most modern work dates to 200 A.D.

The most imposing feature is the Great Hypostyle Hall, which Hussein said has no equal. It is composed of 134 huge columns. He said some of the columns are so large it takes 20 people with outstretched arms to go around them. I would estimate the columns are 10-12 feet in diameter. There is a capital at the top of the columns and Hussein said some are so large that 100 people could stand on them at one time.

This was the great religious site in the country's then capital. Hussein said it contained 30,000 priests for worship and 6000 officials to keep the whole site running. Karnak was started by Seti I and filled out by his son, Ramses II.

In the complex are two standing obelisks. These are single pieces of granite quarried at Aswan and floated down river. One we looked at weighed over 500 tons. A twin was removed to Istanbul. Hussein said the obelisks were covered originally with gold sheets. He estimated it took 6000-7000 people just to move the obelisk from the quarry to the river for transport.

In the afternoon there was another tour to the Luxor temple. It is south of Karnak and connected by a nearly two mile avenue of sphinxes. But one temple a day is still my quota and Betty and I passed on this tour.

Our Egypt tour is winding down and tomorrow we will fly from Luxor to Cairo and spend overnight there in the same hotel, Ramses Nile, we stayed at last week.
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