Luxor - Day 2

---

I think that God is toying with me. I had to get up at 4:30am in order to get ready for my Hot Air Balloon Ride over Luxor. On the way out of the hotel, I noticed a 5-Star sign behind the front desk. It was from the Tourism Board of Egypt. That explains a lot.

Hot Air Balloon Ride

I had arranged my Hot Air Balloon Ride through Shadi (Pack2Egypt) before I came to Egypt. My Taiwanese friends who joined me on the Nile River Cruise decided they would like to go too, but arranged it through a tour agency directly in Luxor. Since they would need to catch the late morning balloon, they would need to meet us wherever we were on our regular tour. When they tried to call Mohammed, our local tour representative in Luxor, to arrange this he got really upset. He actually come down to the tour agency and got in a fight with them about wanting a commission and not wanting to allow them to go. After some more heated words, it was agreed that they could do their Hot Air Balloon ride and meet up with our group when they were done. This story will continue a little later.

The Hot Air Balloon ride, my first, was really good. The skies were clear, winds pretty calm, and the views magnificent. Their were maybe a half dozen other balloons that launched for the early morning flight, all strewn out across the sky. Not quite as majestic as the Lewiston Hot Air Balloon festival, but decent nonetheless.

The balloon’s basket is divided into 5 compartments, 4 on the outside that hold up to 5 passengers each, and 1 in the middle for the pilot. We only had 4 people in each of the passenger compartments…but the thought of 17 people, two heavy propane tanks, a basket, and two flame throwers being held up by little more that hot air, a thin piece of fabric, and a couple of cables did concern me a bit.

As we got into the basket, the pilot first explained to us how to get into the proper landing posture. This “crash” position was needed because in the best case, we would have two hard bumps and then have the basket topple over when we land. Worst case, there would be 3-4 hard bumps, the basket would topple over, and then we would be dragged for 100-150 meters. Some of the folks in the balloon paled a little. I don’t remember my parents mentioning this to me when they did their ride.

The balloon pilot, who also happened to be the boat captain as we crossed the Nile to the balloon launch site, actually was a very entertaining and good pilot. Although this wasn’t his main job. His real job is as an owner/chef of a restaurant in Luxor. And the guy who picked me up at the hotel? The restaurant’s manager. The pilot of the other balloon was our pilot’s cousin and a waiter at the restaurant. A very hardworking group indeed.

Our pilot brought us up to about 1500 ft, swinging by the Valley of the Kings and Queens, almost dipping us into the Nile, and then bringing us over Luxor. My fellow balloon compartment occupants were actually a family from Boston, who had brought their son to Egypt over for Spring Break. We chatted a bit about the Red Sox and Whitey Bulger…nothing like chatting about the mob while in a Hot Air Balloon on the other side of the world. Their son even got to pilot the balloon for a while.

Our captain’s initial briefing aside, the landing was pretty smooth. He has able to land the balloon on the first try, with no bounces, and kept the basket upright (although it did tip a good 45 degrees). All this without any help from a landing party to grab lines to hold us down. Like I said, our pilot was good.

We ended up landing in a random sugarcane field. A bunch of children and field laborers ran up to our balloon to gawk at us. We gawked back. Eventually the landing party found us, and had to carry us a good 100 meters so that we could get out. By this time we had gathered quite a crowd. A couple of guys pulled out a drum (god knows where from), started singing, and we had an impromptu dance party. That was cool. To boot, we got to try some fresh cut sugarcane.

When I got to the hotel, I was surprised to find my Taiwanese friends there. I was a bit surprised, since they should have been up in the air. They told me that their balloon ride was cancelled because it was too windy. At this point Mohammed slithered over and asked me how my ride was, to which I replied “Very Good.” He then looks over at my Taiwanese friends and says that if they would have went through him, they could have done a hot air balloon ride too. Cold, very cold.

Valley of the Kings

There are 62 tombs in the Valley of the Kings, but only 13 are currently open. For the tickets that we got, we can only visit three…our choice of which ones these are. We chose Ramses I, Thutmes IV, and Thutmes III.

Ramses I’s tomb is supposed to contain some of the nicest paintings of all the tombs…but it is also the smallest. Basically it is a long shaft, which opens into the burial chamber, where you walk around a large sarcophagus looking at the painted walls. It takes about 3 minutes to see. I would have enjoyed the painted walls, but one of the security guards thought I had taken a picture with flash (I didn’t realize this until someone told me after I got out of the tunnel)…which I hadn’t. He angrily asked me to give him my camera. I told him fat chance. He didn’t seem to understand this term. He then started yelling about bringing me to the Tourist Police. I told him to go right ahead. He left me alone after this, but watched me until I left. Obviously he didn’t get the memo that I am not an evil-doer.

The tombs of the Thutmes’ were a lot larger, which allowed us to have a greater appreciation for them. Without the presence of an over-eager reject from the militant wing of the Salvation Army (credit to Austin Powers for the inspiration) trailing me, I was able to snap a couple of photos (sans flash) in Thutmes IV’s tomb.

Valley of the Queens

The name “Valley of the Queens” is a bit of a misnomer. In addition to queens, it contains Princes and Princesses, Ramses II’s sons, and some other important (at the time) dead people. I now have some very good ideas on how I would like to be buried.

There are over 75 tombs here, but only 3 are currently open for visitors. The first tomb we went into, one of the sons of Ramses II, was lit up nicely, and all the reliefs were painted nicely and brightly. Perplexed, we finally figure out that the tomb must have been restored recently. When we go into the next tomb, that of Amen Khopshef, our suspicions were confirmed, as the reliefs are in pretty bad shape. I honestly can’t I remember anything about the last tomb we visited.

Unfortunately, the tomb of Nefertari is currently closed. Our guide explains that only special guests can get into the tomb, at the low price of 20,000L.E. (about $3,500US). We pass on the opportunity.

Temple of Queen Hatshepsut

Some of the group decided to walk from the Valley of the Queens to the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. Summoning images of myself wandering aimlessly through the desert, I decided to take the van.

Hatshepsut was the wife of Tuthmosis II (her half brother), who died before his son, Tuthmosis III was old enough to be Pharaoh…so she got to be the de-facto ruler of Egypt for 20 years. The temple is a series of three terraces, each getting smaller as you ascend the temple, like a pyramid. The temple had beautiful reliefs which still had some of their original paint remaining. Of course, it also had the obligatory columns and statues. Some in the group had a particular/peculiar interest in a statue of Horus, the falcon god. He’s so sexy.

Colossus of Memnon

This wasn’t much more that the remains of two big statues. We literally stopped for 5 minutes on our way back to Luxor for some pictures, and then jumped back in the van.

I do have to say that our tour guide was very patient with us today. We were supposed to be done @ 1:00, but ended up exploring until 3:30. After we were done our sightseeing, we decided to stop by Al Hussein restaurant, the competitor of Amoun, where we had dinner last night (both recommended by Lonely Planet). Lunch was OK (Egyptian cuisine is a bit bland), but nothing to write home about.

Overnight Train to Cairo

Before we left for the train, I gave Shadi (we started to call him Shady after we compared some of the prices he charged us for the Sound and Light Show, Abu Simbel, and the sleeper train to the actual costs…thanks to the handy dandy Lonely Planet guide) a call to see if my luggage had arrived yet, since I needed my dive equipment for Dahab. To my great relief, it had indeed arrived at the Zayed Hotel a couple of days back. Woo Hoo!

As we left the hotel to go to the train station, Mohammed tried to pull a fast one on us and put 13 people in a van made to only hold 11 passengers. We cried foul, and forced him to get a taxi for the other two gentlemen he tried to put in the van. He didn’t do so without a fight though. During our short time in Luxor, we determined that Mohammed was a very unprofessional fellow.

At 8:30pm we got back on the train for an overnight trip to Cairo. Seven of us all crowded into a couple of rooms to eat dinner together, chatting about various things. I had a chance to talk with Alessandra about my desire to go down to Brazil at some point to see Rio Di Janeiro, and cruise the Amazon. I think she will be very helpful when I start planning for this trip.

---