Valley of the Kings by ADHD donkeys

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Luxor is where a whole lot of tourists were killed in 1995, but also the famed home of the Valley of the Kings. I did decide to brave the 5.15am donkey ride to this one. To my surprise I was not allergic to these little beasties and have decided that I want one for London. It would be so handy to just tootle around on. Would have to permanently wear a sports bra though. My donkey there I named Mark Berger after an ADHD ex of mine. I got on him and he just took off leaving everyone else behind trying to get a head start. I was a bit worried because I didn’t know where I was going, but turns out it doesn’t matter because they go on auto to the Valley of the Kings and back again.

I did sympathise with the little guy though as he did have particularly short legs, and the others soon caught up. It was all fine until this one particular white donkey passed him and then it was all on, he went into donkey racing mode and would take off. Galloping on a donkey with no stirrups is interesting, but the funniest thing is that he would do it in this short bursts and then stop and start trotting really slowly. So he would be busy dawdling along having a look around him and all of a sudden old white donkey would over take him and it would be all on again. After 45 minutes of this I was ready to get off and do the tour round the tombs. They were quite interesting, but like most places I was not allowed to take photo’s so I am afraid you all miss out.

We then climbed to the top of the valley, why? I don’t know, I think they thought they would throw a bit of trekking into the trip seeing as it was an adventure tour after all. At the top of the hill we were accosted by sales people. All I wanted was a postcard… but I ended up with an Alabaster Scarrob, Horus and a whole lot of postcards. I think it was the shock of the climb -altitude perhaps. We then climbed around to where our donkeys were patiently waiting (tied down to barbed wire) and I got on D’Angelo…. (He loves it… when we’re…cruising togeeeeether…. “) Much more even tempered little trooper. Cracked me up because when we got back we just abandoned them in the streets because apparently they know where to go. Donkey’s are smart, seriously!

We checked into a Hotel (where they were building a brick wall in reception for no apparent reason) to shower as we had been abandoned by the MS Melody. Trev and AJ said goodbye as their part of the tour had finished and we then joined the convoy to Hurghada. At this point we were all beginning to wonder why we had to convoy everywhere and whether it was less to do with “just in case we break down in the desert” and more of a security thing than they wanted to admit to us.

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Photos

Donkey
(Mark Berger)

Valley of the Kings
Me (exhausted)

D'Angelo
Donkey two

Small boat person
With AJ - they start young!

Elaborate salad
Bet you weren't expecting that