Advertisement
Published: August 7th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Queen Hutshepsut
Also known as Queen Hot Chicken Soup After a 10 hour train ride (during the day with air-conditioning working only sometimes) we arrived to the train station with literally 20 men wanting us to go to their hostel, and as we were the only tourists on the train they all came over to us. We had already decided on a place so that made it a bit easier but the problem was that we had no idea how to get to the place so had these men following us pointing out their hostels saying that theirs were so much better etc. We finally found it and were so happy to be in air-conditioning again. The owner had told us that the rooms were LE35 a night but we managed to get him down to LE10 and had breakfast thrown in. Nicely done I think.
We settled in and woke up the next day and decided to go on a mini tour of the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. The temperature that day was 50c and we had no shade to go into cause we were out in the desert looking at all these tombs, even going underground to the tombs it was still
really warm. The tombs were unbelievable to be in. All the paintings were still on the walls and the massive rooms that they had built, it was truly unbelievable what the achieved all those centuries ago. We were told a story that whenever a King or Queen was ordained a village (usually where they were from) was instructed to begin building a Tomb for them. The workers had to continue to build the tomb until the day they died, otherwise if they finished early then they and their whole village would have been killed. When the workers were taken from the village they were blindfolded so that they didn’t know where the valley and tombs where (so they couldn’t go back and rob them later). You could also tell if the King or Queen had died young because their tombs inscriptions and drawings did not reach the ground (as they always started a tomb from the roof down).
I have to make one note that when we were in one particular tomb we noticed a foam mattress and it looked like there was something underneath it, so being the curious types we went to have a look. Well, wouldn’t
you know it, there was a box of paints under there. We asked the guy at the top of the tomb what they were for (and if the paint on the walls were really as old as they said) and he told us that they had just been touching up the roof. Strange, as the roof was grey and white and the walls were the colours of the paints (red, yellow, oranges, blacks etc) hmmmmmm.
Liz managed to get food poisoning while we were in Luxor so she basically sat on the toilet for 2 and half days 😊 not exactly the way she wanted to spend the time there. While she was sick Krysten and I went about exploring and spent a much needed day at a swimming pool overlooking the Nile. One night when we were walking home these random guys on the street wanted to know if we wanted to come to a wedding the next night as his cousin was getting married. Not to be rude we did, and we got given alcohol (something that is very rare in Egypt) and had dinner with the groom and his family, danced with the groom and enjoyed
a performance by one of the countries famous singers. All in all a great night out. As we found out, it is a 4 day event, but we only went to one of the nights
The Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple, where amazing!!! They cover massive areas and would have looked stunning in there full glory, we were dwarfed by the pillars, and some of the sculptures that were there. It certainly is something that needs to be seen, hard to describe it and do it justice. We relented on our way home and stopped off at McDonalds!! the first time since leaving home...wait i lie we did have it in Rio as a hangover cure one day. When we walked in through the doors, i have never come across a place soooo chilled with A/C it was heaven!! but it was short lived and when you went outside again, it felt as if it was a lot hotter than when you walked in.
The Following day we also indulged in a tradition of all tourists to Egypt....a Falluca ride on the nile. It is essentially a boat ride, but very relaxed and the flow of water is
the method of propulsion not the wind. We had a realxing float down the nile with all of us taking turns on the front of the boat to soak up some sun, and also dip our feet/hands in the nile. It is tempting when I go back to do a 2 or 3 day ride on a Falluaa, but it would depend on who i was with as your are stuck in a very small area with a group of people for a few days and you need to be able to entertain yourself somehow.
The following day we parted company with Krysten, and headed for Dahab, which is where the bombings were a couple of months earlier.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0525s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb