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Published: October 24th 2011
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Your guess is as good as mine.
Wheat wheat everywhere, in all shapes, sizes and colours! Finally, a long 24 hours later, Geoff joined us and we got to hear his story, and examine him from head to foot.
His feet grabbed my attention first - perhaps because I had sewn his gaiters onto his shoes and so felt very responsible for their well-being. So when his first blog had came in reporting blisters and a broken nail I was devastated. But despite a week of fretting about them, his feet weren’t as skanky as I thought they’d be – although I’m not sure that Geoff would agree with me.
His multiple blisters looked ok (albeit highly attractive to flies) and his toenails (although barely embedded) would last the week. No worries about that though as I had decided that toenails were surplus baggage on a race like the Sahara anyway…
More worrying were his swollen legs and crippling shin splints. Needless to say, old Florence got the poor boy’s pins elevated by laying him on sun loungers (oh, life is hard!) and tucking our backpack under the mattress at night. He also got fed analgesics (cold beer) and some non-powdered nosh. Most importantly though, he (for once) just let himself lie around.
But life Toenails anyone?
Geoff post-Sahara feet. Yum. is life, and Geoff is Geoff and two days later we headed to the station to catch the overnight train to Luxor. Avoiding more wheat, dinner consisted of a packet of chips and a 7 Up. Both came with a free slice of Egyptian cake because, in Egypt, wheat is a compulsory part of every meal ;-)
Thanks to a kind young boy swopping cabins with us, we ended up with two connecting cabins. The kids monkeyed around swinging from bunk to bunk in a delirium as they explored their sweet overnight surroundings with their little wash basins, night lights, food trays and other sleeping-train delights. Then they climbed into their swaying dream-destined carriages and fell asleep like candles being blown out.
Luxor was different to Cairo from our first early-morning glance. The horses here looked well-fed and cared for, the people were less pushy, the Nile clean and the town delightfully small.
This felt like an Egypt I could do.
Geoff was still not mobile so I dumped our bag and caught a horse cart to a local supermarket with a friendly guy called Mostafa who drove me there for free and gallantly carried my shopping
Nosh for Natalie.
Filling up with fuel at one of Luxor's petrol stations. basket around the small store while I tried to gather what I could for our young one. Of course I agreed to go for a trot around the city with the kids later that afternoon when he dropped me back home;-)
So come 4 o clock I woke the kids from a much needed sleep after our late night and hoisted them into a jingling horse carriage.
What a different experience this horse ride was to the one we had had in Cairo. Mostafa clearly loved his horse Natalie, and had her trotting on or pulling tight u-turns with the click of his tongue or a softly spoken word. En route we stopped to buy her dinner – a generous load of fresh, juicy green nosh that got bundled into the carriage. Then we trundled into a local quarter where he unhooked Natalie from the cart and had her re-shoed. It was a pleasant trip and a gentle introduction to Luxor.
The next day we all took another horse cart meander around the city. A young guy named Ibrahim was our driver and after an enjoyable ride, he invited us to tea at his house. Here he introduced
Peace pipes.
Egypt's version of street hookas. us to his gangly 2 month old colt, mother and sister.
We spent an hour with him, glimpsing a vastly different reality and playing with newborn chickens. The best part of the stay though was Ibrahim asking about the bandage on Geoff’s leg and on discovering it’s cause taking us to an apocathary to get “virry virry gud medceen”. It cost R4.50, and true to his word, fixed Geoff’s leg after only 2 applications. Which meant, that a week after landing in Egypt, we had finally arrived!
Yippee!
Geoff was now pretty much on his pins so without further ado, Princess bundled her troop into a horse buggy and set off for Karnak Temple.
What an introduction to Egypt’s golden history! I was so excited I even hired a guide to take us around. And what a find he was.
An expert in Egyptology, Khaled was a mine of interesting information. So fed by interesting facts and a grand sense of antiquity we wandered around this imposing temple for a few hours, awed by its mammoth pillars, giant statues and a rich history.
It was unbelievable to trace hieroglyphics with my fingertips and see in real life what I had
imagined since childhood. The Gods and Goddesses, the kings and queens, the living and the dead.
Tutankhamun, Isis, Horace, Queen Neffatiti. Khaled pointed out how they had built mud ramps to create the walls surrounding the temple (and supposedly the pyramids too) and explained how they had erected 30 meter tall obelisks weighing thousands of tons – impossible feats for the time and age which led to the speculation of alien help.
It was fascinating and I wandered around touching and feeling and marveling and totally captivated, until finally, the lure of ice creams overcame two hot and bothered children and we headed off – but only after making a date with our guide, Khaled, to visit the Valley of the Kings two days later.
(Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see more photos...)
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