Team Gecko On Tour

So having spent Saturday at the Pyramids we then set off on our trip south from Cairo. As far as I was concerned the real tour started here! We left on the overnight train to Luxor which despite being a 10 hour longhaul was great fun. We had smuggled a bit of booze on board (felt a bit like sneaking it into the cricket) so we were quite merry and very noisy. Nevertheless we had comfortable airline style seats (which you could turn around to face the row behind you) and everyone managed to get at least a couple of hours sleep by the time we arrived in Luxor at 8am.

Luxor is an interesting kind of place with heaps and heaps of the famous Egyptian temples and tombs etc to head to and see. Back in the day (3000 years ago) it was called Thebes and it was the capital of Egypt throughout most of its ancient history. Valley of the Kings, Karnak and Luxor temples - all of these places are here. And the other thing is that because Luxor is in the south of Egypt it is bloody hot - the day we arrived the mercury burst its way to 47 deg! Havin thought that 38 deg was hot in Greece it was quite a shock to find Luxor smash that to pieces, but as long as you stay out of the direct sunlight and in the breeze its really not too bad (even if it was 10 times the temperature as it was in Wellington that day!). Luckily the hotel we were in had a rooftop pool so we certainly capitalised on that.

As a result we waited until later in the day before making our first excursions, taking horse drawn carriages (quite randomly they are the trendiest taxis in Luxor) to Karnak Temple for a tour. The local guide that we had was a real character and when he found out I was from NZ and that there were Aussies in the group too, he would slip in references like "This used to be covered in gold and precious stones until 1000BC when an army of hungry Kiwis and Aussies invaded and carried away the gold stuffed up their rugby jerseys and hidden in their Kangaroo pouches." Hilarious stuff. Anyway Karnak is a huge site of ancient Egyptian temples that over time was built and added to by about 30 Pharoahs. Apparently its sheer scale makes it the largest religious building site in the world - bigger in area than the Vatican etc.

From Karnak we took the carriages back to the docks where we crossed the Nile to the West Bank for a camel ride around a traditional village. And it really was a traditionally village too mind you, not one of those ones that they have mocked up for tourists. The camels took us back to town where we had dinner on the rooftop looking over the Nile. The boy who was leading my camel proudly announced to me that my camel called George Bush because "he is the big boss man, is stubborn and doesn't listen". The camel didn't give me any problems though so we got along just fine.

The next day started early for those of us who had opted for the hot air balloon ride at dawn but boy was it worth it. We again crossed the river to the West Bank where we had an hour long ride over the spectacular ancient sites that Luxor is littered with and also the green cultivated areas that border the Nile. You could clearly see where the Nile river irrigation stops as the green fields cut immediately to sandy desert. They call Luxor one of the world's greatest open air museums and floating above the are for an hour was a real privilege. We landed near the village I talked about earlier and hordes of kids came sprinting out to help us out of the balloons and then dance with us to celebrate our safe trip back to earth.

We then caught up with the others for the donkey ride to the Valley of the Kings, which is the location where most of the wealthy Pharoahs were buried in their tombs. The donkeys were great fun and much better than the camels so it was great to ride them to the tombs instead of taking a boring old bus. After a lot of bad Shrek jokes and plenty of eee-awwing we arrived at the Valley of the Kings to meet our hilarious guide again. Your entry ticket allows you to visit up to 3 of the 62 tombs that they have found so far and our guide took us to 3 of the best: Rameses IV, Merenptah and Ramses I. Cameras are strictly prohibited as the flashes damage the paintings, so again I don't have any pictures to show inside the tombs, but I will just say that I found them even more amazing than the Pyramids were. They are all burrowed straight into the sheer rock walls of the valley and some of them are up to 100m deep, with every possible surface covered in elaborate paintings and hieroglyphics depicting the Pharoah's lifetime achievements and empathising his virtues (so that the gods would let him enter the afterlife). Entering Tutankhamen's tomb was another 40 Egyptian Pounds so we flagged that on the advice of our guide. Evidently his tomb is actually quite small and insignificant as he died when he was 18 and the tomb was a rush job. In fact the only thing that makes King Tut so famous is that his tomb was found intact with all of its wonderful treasures still there, as most of the other tombs had been looted by grave robbers over the centuries. Again our guide was up to his usual tricks taking pains to tell me that a particular tomb was where Jonah Lomu, the famous Kiwi rugby playing Pharoah was buried. And here I thinking the big fella was still alive and kicking.

After the Valley of the Kings we headed back to Luxor and boarded our cruise ship for a 3 day cruise up the Nile to Aswan. Next update from there!

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