Luxor the Old Kingdom

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On Oct 7th we left Aswan floating up the Nile on a Felucca, which is sort of like a small sail boat. We spent 2 days floating up the Nile, just relaxing, eating, sleeping and having bon fires during the evening. The boats crew would sing and play drums and teach us to dance around the bon fire. The felucca ride was a very easy 2 days of travel.

From the Nile we went to Luxor. My impression of Luxor is that they are so used to tourist that each vendor had there own little scam to try to get you into their shop, it was very annoying.

In Luxor, I went to the mummification museum, which was a very large waste of money. Don’t ever go. I also went to Karnak Temple, which is a site that compiles a bunch of ancient temples that were built and remodeled over a period of 1,500 years. This is also where the Temple of Amun is located at, which is believed to be the largest religious building ever built. I was impressed but mostly with the size of the pillars. There area was very crowded with a ton of tourist, which took away from what this temple should have been.

My favorite part of Luxor was riding a donkey, Simpson, to the Valley of the Kings and to the Valley of the Workers.

We rode the donkeys through town and then once we were out of town we rode up the same road that all the tour bus drove up. It seemed a little weird to be riding these donkeys and having all the air conditioned minibuses pass us. I really thought that we would just be walking through the sandy hills. Once we arrived at the parking lot of the Valley of the Kings we then had to leave our donkeys. We were told that we would see them again on the way to the Valley of the Workers.

The Valley of the Kings was not what I expected, nothing really has been though. I am truly disappointed in the fact that everything that should be so magical has been so commercialized and under appreciated by the locals. With the tickets that were purchased we were able to visit 3 tombs. In the first tomb the guard was so rude that it was hard to enjoy the art. The colors were very vibrant still after so many years. The second and third tombs were both nice as well, these had the ceilings painted which was interesting.

From the Valley of the Kings we hiked up a mountain and met back up with the donkeys. We rode the donkeys along top of the mountain and then we had to walk them downhill. I felt like I was going to die because of the heat, it really made me feel bad for riding the donkeys.

The Valley of the Workers was the area where the people lived who built the tombs for the kings. The town was left in crumbles, but we were able to visit 2 tombs. The workers were given three weeks a year for time off and what they did during their vacations was build there own tombs for themselves and their families. The tombs were much smaller and less deep but still just as beautiful. The main difference for these tombs was that there were no carvings only paintings.

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