Colossi of Memnon | A Long Day of Excursions | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 6 (Part 44) 05D19

Early Breakfast at Lotus Luxor Hotel | Visiting Twin Memnon Pillars - Two Faceless Colossi of Memnon Representing Pharaoh Amenhotep III

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

We were scheduled to leave the hotel at 6:30, so I had to wake up very early. The hotel provided breakfast in a box, which was available before 6:00. It was a basic dry breakfast, but I appreciated that they provided something so early.

Some of our tour mates went for a hot air balloon ride that provided aerial views of Luxor, its iconic landmarks, and the sunrise. I skipped that because it was way too early. Just before leaving the hotel, I saw the sky in the distance when daylight broke. It was a beautiful view over the swimming pool with mountains and the Nile River in the background.

We were heading to the Valley of the Kings as our first excursion of the day. However, we had a stopover at the Colossi of Memnon, a site where two huge faceless statues representing Pharaoh Amenhotep III rise majestically about 18m from the plain.

Each colossus is cut from a single block stone and weighs about 1000 tons. This place is a popular tourist spot with lots of open gift shops and small or big restaurants. Our tour mates who went for the balloon ride would meet us here.

I picked up a mango juice from a restaurant for 30 LE, about $2.40 CAD. I would say this was my best mango juice ever. They squeezed real mango with pulp in front of you, adding nothing. The result was a heavenly sweet mango juice – the taste was hard to forget.

I also met a cute and friendly street dog greeting all the tourists, wagging his tail. A lot of tourists liked his sweet behaviour and fed him cookies bought from the roadside snack shops.

All our tour mates gathered and soon we were heading to the Valley of the Kings.