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Published: February 22nd 2012
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We arrived in Luxor and tried to find the Boomerang Hostel, which had been recommended. (It lived up to its recommendation and is by far the best place I have stayed so far). Unfortunately, it is marked in the complete wrong position on google maps and after walking around aimlessly for a while, we eventually agreed to a horse carriage to take us there. We agreed 5 EGP with him and as we arrived, he asked us for some baksheesh for the horse. We laughed and said we might buy him a carrot. When we paid him the agreed 5 EGP, he started to claim it was 5 EGP each. We tried to ignore and went into the hostel where he followed us. Mohammed, the guy from our hostel, asked what the problem was and then took your man outside and told him where to go.
That night we went for some food and a couple of beers. While having our beers, an English woman of about 60, sitting with an Egyptian in his 30s started talking to us and invited us over to sit with them. Without much of a choice we did and listened to how they had
met over the internet 4 years ago, had been married for 20 days, split up and that now she was back in Luxor and he wanted her back...all this mostly came from her. We finished our beers and called it a night.
The next day, we rented some bikes and took them over the ferry over to the West Bank. This is where most of the sights in Luxor are with the Valley of the Kings, Nobles tombs and the Temple of Hatshemsup being among the places we saw. Cycling around was a very enjoyable way of doing it. The distances are too far away to walk and you don't have to deal with any taxi drivers either.
The next day, we decided to visit Karnak, which is on the East Bank. We took the scenic route after I lead us astray, thinking we were the opposite side of the train station to the one on the map. It did take us through a very interesting and poor part of the city though. Karnak is billed as Egypt's most impressive sight and it is certainly up there, if for nothing else the sheer size of the place and
the amount of temples, statutes, obelisks etc built there. We later managed to catch Man Utd beat Liverpool 2-1, with Suarez acting the complete the gentleman!!!
The next day we went down to the markets and bought a few souvenirs and neccessities. We decided to go back over to the West Bank as we had heard there was a good trek you could do to see the ruins from up high. The weather was a lot cooler, so it was an ideal day to do it. We climbed the tallest mountain on that side and the views were brilliant. Later, we went back to the King's Head where I saw Villa lose to Man City. That night we had a few beers on the rooftop terrace with Lee and Kate, the English couple I had met in Siwa. Josh got his train to Cairo that night and I went to get some sleep before going back to Aswan for the boat to Sudan
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