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Published: March 3rd 2007
Sash and I outside Edfu temple
Can you tell we haven't showered for 4 days?Dirty, sloppy looking, sandy, and generally smelly from a lack of showers over four days on the feluccas, we drove straight to Edfu temple escorted by our police convoy. This temple was dedicated to the falcon headed God, Horus and is not only the best preserved ancient temple in Egypt, but the second largest after Karnak. Apart from dreaming of a shower, I remember there being this really important carving or hieroglyphics of the battle between Horus and Seth, who was depicted as a hippotamus.
After the temple visit we went to our new hotel in Luxor and sprinted for the showers. I was almost taken out by Sashi in her desperate rush for the shower. Fear not, I got my shower evenutally. At this point, showering felt like the highlight of the trip.
No rest for the wicked however, because it was straight off to Karnak temple. The largest temple in the whole of Egypt. I suppose that’s a good enough reason to get out of the shower.
This temple was massive. They started constructing it in the 16th century BC and it is believed that approximately 30 pharoahs contributed to the construction of it.
Hippo hieroglyphics
The battle between Horus and Seth This explains it's size and magnitude of features.
Near the Sacred Lake at the temple there is a large scarab beetle which was built by Amenophis III to signify good luck. Legend has it that if you walk around the beetle counter-clockwise five times you will find love and seven times, you will have a baby! So being the true tourist that I am, I decide to film us all walking around the scarab. I had to rush infront to capture the journey, which subsequently caused me to lose count of the number of times I walked around the thing. Turns out I walked around it six times...which worried me greatly because no one knows what that means. Hmm it was going to be an interesting rest of trip..
We had a classic day guide. To start of with, he approached our group when Mohamed wasn’t with us and offered us his services for a “very good price”. He was acting all dodgy and hassling us. Ross eventually told him to pretty much bugger off, which he did. Until Mohamed returned, at which point we were introduced to this man…as our guide. It was pretty embarrassing but amusing
Me at Karnak temple
The smile is because I had a shower at the same time.
Inside the temple, he showed us all the best spots to take photos and how to take them with all these camera tricks. The best part was when he decided to tell us his “conspiracy” theories surrounding the temple and it’s hieroglyphics (because he’s doing a PHD or something in it all). It was all so top secret to him so to try and ward off eager listeners he would loudly say things like “the view is much better on the other side of the temple”…”this is really a terrible spot for taking photos”…and when he was whispering to us his theory he would randomly call out “look at all the pretty colours”. What a champ.
That night for dinner we hopped on a boat, crossed the Nile (as you do) and ate at a cute little rooftop restaurant. Here we had the chance to book a hot air balloon ride for the following day. I jumped at the chance as I’d never been in a hot air balloon before. So I handed over my credit card which was sure to get a work out in the coming months.
Hot air ballooning… The following
Hot air balloon
Yes, it's the crack of dawn. morning we rose at the crack of dawn (seemingly so much harder when not sleeping on a boat), to go balloon riding. It was so bizarre pulling up to our balloon in the middle of this field, because the field and the sky already was scattered/speckled with hot air balloons. Every colour imaginable floating in the sky, just as if a clown had let go of his bunch of balloons. We had more people than the maximum in our basket, which worried me slightly…but we took off quickly and it was an awesome feeling. Just as we took off though, Ross gave me a “caring wet willy” (in his words). I guess any experience is made more memorable when you share it with two mad Canadians.
The whole ride was amazing though, in that the view was so beautiful and it’s just a really special thing to do…float above temples and fields of Luxor.
Landing was equally as fun. You sort of crash down and these men just appear out of nowhere and grab onto the basket and try and keep it from skidding along the ground. I video-taped the whole thing which was rather amusing when you are bouncing
"Nice donkey"
Me on my donkey "casanova"...hmm that makes two casanovas this trip.. around and have some random Egyptian trying prevent the basket crashing whilst smiling at the camera stuffed in his face.
Donkey riding… Camels just seemed so cliché in Egypt, so donkey riding it was. Donkey riding was hillarious, mainly because Sashi fell off hers. Let me clarify this actually....Sashi was pulled off her donkey. Now you may be wondering what caused this to happen. This is how it came about:
Antony to Sashi (trotting past on his donkey): "You smell like eggs!!"
Sashi: "That's nice Antony"
Me (riding behind Sashi on my donkey): "Sashi, actually, you have eggs in the back of your bag"
Sashi: "Damn you Antony!" (realising at this point why the boys earlier this morning had asked us for our hard boiled eggs in our breakfast boxes...)
*Sashi pulls the eggs out of her bag and kicks her donkey to ride faster and catch up to Antony*
Sashi then attempts to grab onto Antony and smush the eggs in his face, at which point Antony defends himself and somehow manages to pull Sashi of her donkey! Sashi holds onto him for dear life and so pulls Antony off his donkey as well. Meanwhile I've been
Yeehah
They'll be coming round the mountains when they come.. peacefully trotting along behind and seen the whole chain of events happen before me. Laughing hysterically, I try my best to steer my donkey away from running into the pile of people now on the floor.
The hillarity factor was doubled by the fact that Sashi's donkey got free and decided this was his big chance for freedom. Never have I seen a donkey go so fast. This donkey was weaving across the road as if in rebellion of the years of their trainers shouting "STAY RIGHT!!".
As this donkey is making a run for it, Ross takes on the role of our "cowboy hero" and chases this donkey, on his donkey, for a good ten minutes straight. He just rides off into the distance screaming what sounded like "yee-ha", or at least that's what I imagined he was shouting, since he was so far away. After almost losing hope that this donkey would ever get caught and Antony inquiring into how much a donkey approximately costs, Ross pulls through for us and catches this runaway donkey. Good job Ross!
After that excitement, our lucky bunch of donkeys take us the rest of the way to the Valley of
Instead of a donkey..
Mo and Antony on a bike, Antony riding side saddle of course the Kings. Sashi continues to stay on the back of one of the guide's donkeys.
The Valley was used for primary burials from approximately 1539 BC to 1075 BC, and contains at least 63 tombs. The Valley of the Kings contains many of the tombs of pharaohs from the New Kingdom, including Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great. This was a pretty impressive place, walking into these tombs was truely eery but amazing. Unfortunately due to a combination of an early morning, the excitement of donkey riding, a lack of fluids and lack of proper food (beacuse the boys stole our boiled eggs) I felt like I was going to faint the whole time at the Valley. I was more than happy to take the option to ride in the bus back rather than the donkeys again. All but two of our group decided to take the bus back, which resulted in us being dropped off at some "rock" shop whilst we waited for the others to get their donkeys. We were all pretty sun-kissed and cranky at this point and when we were promised free soft drinks at this place and then the guy only offered hot tea, it
was the last straw. Antony blew his top off and successfully managed to get us our drinks. After the "rock shop" experience, we were dropped at another place to wait for the donkeys to arrive...now it was Brett's turn to have a hissy fit. We were all not impressed with this pointless waiting around. Man if I had a dollar for everytime Brett swore under his breath...I'd be rolling in money.
Finally we took the boat back to our hotel and ran through the streets like mad people looking for a place to satisfy our mammoth hunger. The boys and Sash and I found a place called "Quick Pizza". Perfect we thought. Turns out false advertising isn't something really serious in Egypt. This pizza took like half an hour to get to us, which was an eternity after having a day of donkey riding. Granted, it was the best pizza I'd had in a long, long time.
After lunch I decided to go by some socks rather than wash the ones I had. Bad move, because after purchasing them the shopkeeper followed me back to my hotel. I should have not bargained so hard over the price, because now
God of sex
Look closely and you might see why... I had a new "special friend". It was quite amusing though seeing his confused/disappointed face when I explained to him that he could NOT come to my hotel room.
That night we skipped dinner (still full from awesome pizza) and sash and I hung out with the boys in their room. No one else but us were game to try out the hotel discotech which apparently was "the best disco in Luxor". This was going to be good. So we had a few drinks (one which ended up in the curtain thanks to Ross) and headed downstairs. Well the disco was interesting....we were the first to arrive...but we were sure it would fill up soon. *Cough* It was hillarious though, the DJ was playing songs like 'YMCA' and it was just us and Mo (plus one random woman) on the dancefloor dancing and singing our hearts out. My favourite song was 'D-I-S-C-O' which is now in my top rated songs on my ipod.
After we had embarrassed ourselves enough and it didn't seem like anyone else in Luxor was going to turn up to our disco, we returned to the guy's room. The rest of the night was
spent braiding the boy's hair (I can't believe we didn't take photos of this) and convincing them that Australian highschools give their students naptime everyday and the schools even provide us with mats. It's funny what drunk people believe. Altogether, an amusing night.
UP NEXT…the Red Sea!
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Shona
non-member comment
If only i looked that good =)
You don't shower for four days and you still manage to stay beautiful!