Edfu

The next day we sailed to Edfu, where Ahmed promised us a memorable visit ot the Temple of Horus. And he was right, as he always was.

This is where we learned that each god had multiple names in Egypt, depending up where they were and what role they were playing. It made for some overwhelming information at times, but also gave us a good sense of how wildly different and adaptable the religion was, depending on the local situation.

This was a temple dedicated to Horus, the falcon-headed god, who was the son of Isis/Hathor and Osiris--after Osiris' brother had killed him and chopped him into pieces, and then resconstructed (almost, he was missing a key male part) by his sister Isis. She created a phallus and mated with him, which seemed to bring him back to life. Go figure!)

It's all very confusing and complicated, and even more so when you hear that Hathot might also have been Horus sister and/or possibly his wife as well. The gods live in their own world, clearly.

Meanwhile, the temple was wonderful,, with towering pillars and tons of artwork, and we loved the time we spent there. It was quite uncrowded, and the people who were there seemed slightly less interested in Instagram selfies than the tourists in the Valley of the Kings.

The rest of the day was cruising the Nile up to Aswan. past farms that looked unchanged since the time of the Pharaohs.