Monday in Luxor

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The day began with the usual breakfast at the hotel. Our room, though not fancy, is very acceptable. Breakfast is somewhat marginal, but again, acceptable. For this day, we hired a guide to show us three major places: Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and the Hatshepsut Temple.

The ancient city of Thebes (now Luxor) was located on the east side of the Nile River. This is where the two major temples, Luxor and Karnack, are located. To the west of the Nile were the locations of the tombs for the pharaohs. Apparently, after vandalism and theft at the pyramids near Cairo, the decision was made to hide the tombs of the future pharaohs. The Valley of the Kings is a handful of miles west of Luxor in a very desolate area. Tombs were dug into the ground, decorated, and covered when completed so as not to be apparent. This area gets virtually no rain during the year as is exceedingly inhospitable.

Upon arriving at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings, one takes a small electric tram up the valley to the first tombs. While more than two dozen tombs have been discovered, only three are open to the public at this time. One of the more famous, that of King Tut, is not open currently due to work being done there. We did walk through the available three which have all undergone extensive renovation, and are quite nice. Exploration continues as archaeologists estimate that there are maybe 60 tombs to be found.

Next, we drove over to the Valley of the Queens where we were able to enter two tombs. Females were not buried in the same valley as males, hence this location. Also, the tombs were not quick as impressive as those of the males.

Finally, we went to the remains of the Temple of Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut was a female pharaoh, who dressed and acted like a man to impress her subjects with her power. Apparently everyone knew that she was a woman as she had four children, but went along with this pretense anyway. This very large, and impressive, temple had been partially destroyed by her stepson who resented that she had taken power from him.

Our tour finished in the early afternoon. Again, we went to relax by the pool, have lunch, and read for a while. In the early evening, we went for an extensive horse-drawn two-wheeled buggy ride throughout Luxor. First, we had some dinner, then our driver (Ahmed) and his trusty horse (Sarah) took us to an evening market. Now, that was an experience! Ahmed is quite an entertainer, drove his buggy through narrow, narrow streets and market aisles full of people. All in all, this was good fun.

We got a pretty good night’s sleep as we had to leave the next morning for Oman. Egypt was very interesting, though we quickly tired of being aggressively pursued by most everyone looking for money. It didn’t matter whether in a market or not, or even if it was a cop, anyone offering any information, assistance, whatever wanted to be paid for it. It was time to move on!

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