Left bright and early to escape the heat, and had a driver arranged through the hotel take me across the Nile to the West Bank. This is the land of the dead, and probably the greatest burial ground in Egypt outside of Cairo. During the New Kingdom days, nearly 1,000 years after the pyramids were built, pharoahs typically hid their tombs away in the hills surrounding Luxor, or Thebes. All of this was an attempt to stop grave-robbers. The main sites are the Temple of Hatshepsut, the Valley of the Kings, the Tombs of the Nobles, the Ramesseum, and the Temple of Medinat Habu. Since the Temple of Hatshepsut in one of the hottest places in the world, I started here, at around 8:30ish. Next it was the Valley of the Kings. This is where Howard
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