The big day for the local market is Tuesday, but it's active all the time.
People in many countries practice this balancing act.
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Methods of attracting customers vary from the indifferent to scary.
Our caleche driver let us off to stroll through the souq, the traditional market, where we stopped for felafels (which are served in any kind of bread) and some hibiscus tea.
The souq is also a gathering place, in this case for a domino game.
With our guide and driver we caught a glimpse of rural life. In a country where it seldom rains, agriculture is a major part of the economy. For millennia before the Aswan Dam was built in the 60s, the Nile flooded each summer and renewed the land. Today, canals provide water throughout the Nile valley. Major crops around Luxor are sugar cane, wheat, and alfalfa for animal feed, as well as all kinds of vegetables.It was sugar cane harvest time, and we saw everything from donkey carts to trucks and rail cars taking the crop to sugar refineries. As you would expect, people like to chew on the fresh cane as well.
The donkey and donkey cart are versatile transportation machines for folks in the country and city alike.
Pigeon is on the menu at Egyptian restaurants, and "pigeon houses" like this are where they come from. Works better than a freeway overpass, I guess.
The chef at the Mara House (which had only two rooms occupied while we were there) used to work at a 5-star hotel and cooked for generals when he was in the army. Our package deal included two fantastic meals with a wide sampling of Egyptian food: rice, meatballs, sweet potatos, foul, humus, babaganoush, lentils, a chicken casserole sort of like lasagna, and much I can't describe.Our two weeks in Egypt went by very fast, and it was time to say goodbye and move on to Jordan. It will be hard to match the experiences we had here.
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