LUXOR AND NILE CRUISE

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April 26

Once we arrived in Luxor we were wisked off to Karnak Temple on horsedrawn carriages where we met our guide Mustafa. This temple was used as a place of worship and was built upon by many Kings throughout the beginning of the 19th over 1300 years.The Great Hypostyle Hall with the gigantic columns was built by Seti I & Ramses II. Like many of the sights in Egpyt, they are still excavating today. On the way to Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple you will ride down a long road that used to be lined all the way with ram headed Spinx. After a a couple of hours walking around the Karnak temple it was starting to get really hot so we decided to hit the markets for a cool drink and a little shopping. This is where I had my first experience with barganning. I think I did pretty well barginning the items down almost 50%. The key is to really know what you want and how much you are willing to pay. I bought a few scarves and a purse which i ended up giving to my mom.

Later we were able to check into our boat which we would be on for the next 7 days. We had to walk through about 5 really plush boats to get to ours which were all tied up to ours. I have to say I was a little dissapointed after walking through these really huge cruise boats. It turned out to be a great boat and the highlight of my trip and we ended up paying a lot less money.

April 27

The next morning we woke up at 4am to take a balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings. Only 6 of us from the tour decided to do it. This was a great experience since I have never been on a balloon ride other than the tethered one over Ankor Wat. We took a little boat across the Nile to the other side and drove a little bit to an empty field where about 10 balloons were being inflated. I was a little scared since it seemed like they overfilled the basket with 30 people. After getting over my initial fear I really enjoyed it. After almost landing in a garbage dump we were off to get on our donkeys for a ride with the rest of our group to the Valley of the Kings. This was hilarious, donkeys just do what they like and we were knocking into one another. My bunk mates donkey was sick and had diarehea that got on her pants, it was gross. To make them go faster you just had to say Yala, Yala which essentially means lets go.

We met up with our guide Mustafa from Giza again and he was going to show us around the tombs. Your ticket only allows you to visit 3 tombs but 17 of the 63 are open on a rotating basis. We went into RamsesIX, RamsesIII and one other that I didn't write down. You need to walk down long halways that head underground and on the way there are plenty of hieroglyphics. It was once again getting super hot and so we headed back to the boat.

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