Luxor

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This morning we have been given breakfast in bed, which is really nice, except he takes away our left over cake!

KINGS AND QUEENS

In the morning we go to the Valley of the Kings, this is where Tutankhamen’s tomb is. There are lots of tombs built down inside the mountains, and we will be able to go inside 3 of them. If we want to go inside Tutankhamen’s it is an extra 100 Egyptian Pounds and since we have seen everything that came out of it we decline. He is still entombed in there but apart from that it is the same as the ones that we go into.

No cameras are allowed into the area and bags are checked. So we leave everything in the car to save the hassle.

In the information building they have a model of the mountain valley and where all the tombs are located. Underneath it shows what it looks like under the ground, so you can see how deep they go and which way they tunnel.

We go outside to a shaded seating area where Salem gives us our ‘lessons’ as we call them now and then sets us loose to explore. At most of these places the guides are not allowed inside, only paying guests.

We have to walk down deep underground, some more than others. The deepest one is so hot and humid, you can imagine what it must have been like for the people who were doing the work for so many years. The pictures on the walls depict 2 things, what the King thought the afterlife would bring for him and also tells the story of everything he had done with his life.

These tombs had all been buried in sand like so many of the temples and so are beautifully preserved. The inscriptions have all been painted and then are covered in a mixture of honey and wax to preserve the colour. It’s amazing to see well it has worked, after 3,000 plus years the colours are as bright perhaps as the day they were done!

To get out you have to run the gauntlet of people selling everything from books, statues, postcards, clothes. I lost count how many we had to say no to, it would have been more than 30!

QUEEN HAT-SHIP-COAT

We then went to Queen Hat-ship-coat’s (spelt wrong, but that is how you pronounce it) tomb. As only Kings ruled, never Queens, hers is the only one made for a Queen. She is usually depicted in statues as a man and not a woman because of this. It’s magnificent, it has been partially restored by the Polish (in fact the quarters built for the restoration crews are still there too) and there are 3 levels to it, which again is unusual for the time. Lots of pillars on each floor, and again, it’s huge. Nothing is done on a small scale.

We then went to an Alabaster factory and saw the different types of stone that was used by the ancients and also how the bowls etc were made by hand. It was interesting I guess and they were nice enough not to do the hard sell, perhaps they had been warned!

We lastly see some more statues, but these have a little more significance as Salem himself was involved in unearthing them, so that’s a bit special.

Back on the boat for lunch and pool time until we go to see Salem’s family at their home before dinner.

As Salem lives in Luxor with his wife, children and cat (its name is Pussy-cat!) he goes home and will stay there tonight and not on the boat.

THE REAL EGYPT

Salem picks us up at 5:30pm and drives us to his parent’s house as they still live in the same place that Salem’s fathers’ grandfather lived! We drive past Karnak Temple that we will visit tomorrow, through the back streets and well away from the tourist areas.

There are little stalls where the locals shop, lots of donkey carts, men sitting together smoking their water pipes, kids playing soccer in fields that are no more than a clear area of sand and some makeshift goals, there are coffee shops where no women are allowed, men making mud bricks the same way they have been made for the last 4,000 years…

We park up the Hyundai (with no airconditioning, but surprisingly we don’t melt, maybe its because we are excited about our impending visit) and walk to his home. On the way everyone we pass smiles and waves hello. It’s such a friendly place once you get past the whole man/woman thing.

When we get to his home, outside in the lane way is a group of 6 kids sitting playing Playstation! It seems it doesn’t matter where you go, kids are kids. It seemed so funny though in the middle of all the primitiveness!

Their house is I think 3 floors high, made of mud brick with really thick walls. It has only a ceiling fan but it feels very cool, apparently the upper floors are not so cool, but that is where Salem’s other 2 brothers live with their wives.

We only go into the lounge room which is bare except for 2 day beds that doubles as high couches, a tall table by the far wall (with what looks like a satellite box sitting on top) and there’s a photo on the wall of his parents taken quite a few years ago on a family holiday. There are what I call ‘magic carpets’ on the floor.

His mum makes me a cup of hot sweet tea and his brother goes and buys Tim a Sprite.

We learn that his mum married his dad at 12 years old and had their first son at 13. We’re happy to learn that this no longer happens, girls are about 20 and guys about 35 when they marry now.

You can see the close bond between the family when his mum talks to Salem. Its just like you would expect a mum to be when she hasn’t seen her son for some time. But you can also see the traditional relationship between them, when he wants another drink, he hold out his glass to her and says he wants another. She gets up off the floor where she is sitting and promptly gets it.

We stay about an hour and we are back on the way to the boat for dinner.

OUR LAST SUPPER - SO TO SPEAK

We get back to the boat and we have an elephants made of towels waiting for us - cool! Only problem with these being left for us is that they use our towels, regardless if they are wet or not… So you have to unwrap them straight away so the towels can still dry!

At dinner tonight all the waiters are dressed in tuxedos for our last dinner on board. The service is, as usual, great. We learned today that this boat is only new and it first sailed in February this year. Every night our waiter has shown us a game or a trick, he has showed us how to move a wine cork into a glass using another glass, how to move pepper that has been sprinkled over a saucer of water to the other side, he has made a baby out of serviettes, so tonight we are looking forward to what is in store - but nothing, didn’t feel the love tonight. But when we tried to sneak some desserts out to have later, he catches us and takes our plate, puts glad wrap on it, gets cutlery and sends us on our way following close behind with our plate - we feel the love again!

THE DANCERS

It’s belly dancer night tonight. Salem comes and watches with us and has a look at our photos on laptop. He seems quite uncomfortable when the dancer is on and doesn’t quite know where to look.

The dancer was great to watch, amazing muscle control, but looked a little bored. Shows how easy it must have been for her. She got a few of the girls up in the crowd to try with her, funny stuff.

Then a guy got up to dance. I’m not sure what his dance was called but it was absolutely amazing to watch.

He was wearing black pants and shirt and over the top he had 2 layers of long brightly coloured skirt. He was holding 5 things that looked like hat box lids that all fitted inside eachother.

For his dance, he spun round very fast constantly (he must have been spun around a lot as kid!). As he spun he would move the lids into different formations, but everything happened so quick that it would just appear. A photo cannot capture the skill that he had and I wish I could work out how to upload video onto this blog, that’s one I will have to bore you all with when we get back.

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