Day 172: Sofra So Good (19/07/2011)

Beaten by the heat, Clare retired to bed.

Meanwhile I braved the afternoon temperatures to see the Luxor Temple that shares a heritage with the Karnak site, as a result of a sacred sphinx lined way that joins the two temples, nearly 2 ½ miles apart. Most has been lost to development but ½ a mile remains in a beautiful boulevard heading toward Karnak.

The temple is Karnak’s poor relation but is still a gigantic three compartment structure complete with pylons and towering pillars, all be it in slightly fewer numbers.

What is interesting is that while Karnak remained relatively untouched by succeeding regimes, if not from the predations of time, Luxor has been revisited numerous times by each successive warlord.

Through passing dynasties, additions have been made and the likeness of predecessors has been expunged, sometimes partially by the removal of a nose here or a ceremonial beard there, but often by the systematic chiselling away of whole sections of depiction so as to deny a place in history and, as some academics believe, to put a retrospective spoiler on a past Pharaoh’s entrance into the afterlife.

After the great dynasties passed, there came conquest by Alexander the Great in 331BC, and sure enough, he is depicted in Pharaohnic form on a later extension. Later followed Caesar and Diocletian to mention but a few, each adding their likeness in a telling representation that reveals their ambition for absolute power over the Roman empire. The Ptolemies came and went with the saga of Anthony and Cleopatra and in their wake a church was added in whose remains Roman murals of the congregation of the Saints are still clear and vibrant to this day despite the collapse of the roof and the ingress of the elements.

During the Ptolemaic rebellion in 287AD, Diocletian fortified the temple shortly before splitting the empire into east and west. It served as fortress until the Romans departed.

Exhausted from the sun, I crawled back to the hotel before dinner at Sofra.

It is a perfect place.

Discretely lit by colourful brass and stained glass lamps, the floor is tiled with green and white, lending a Moroccan feel. The furniture is inlaid with ivory and mother of pearl and the lamb tagine was the most flavourful dish so far, anywhere.

The experience was marred only slightly by the process of getting there. Determined to walk, we wound down ever darker and more threatening back streets, where dogs barked and men shuffled in the gloom around us, visible only by the light of their cigarettes. Hopelessly lost, we asked for directions and after lame protest were bundled into a taxi with a fast talking ‘guide’ and an argumentative driver. Seven times I asked for a price and seven times came an ambiguous reply. Seven times I asked whether he knew where we were going and seven times came the assurance. Round and round we went. Tenser and tenser became the atmosphere as we asked to be set down but to no avail.

Eventually, 300 yards from where we were picked up, we were set down outside Sofra with a demand for more than the meal eventually cost us.

Feeling angry and threatened, voices were raised in that characteristically Egyptian way, like milk boiling over and we were intimidated into paying up despite the patent rip off that was taking place.

A cold drink and a few deep breaths later, we put matters into perspective by recognizing that we had lost three English pounds.

But we learnt a lesson worth ten times that amount.