Blogs from Luxor, Upper Egypt, Egypt, Africa - page 8

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 ... read more

This morning started with having to jump off a moving train. Yes, you heard correctly. The train crew didn’t wake us up in time once we got to Luxor station, and by the time I got all my stuff ready, the train was on the move. They yelled out, trying to stop the train, but my only option was to jump off, as did my cabin mate. Luckily the train was going no faster than running speed. I did stumble a bit when I jumped off, and it was kind of scary, but an interesting experience. This is how it’s done in Egypt; it will make an adventurer out of you. I got transferred to my hostel, and caught a bit more sleep. I had a tour at about 8am – I was going to be ... read more

Me again! This time from the hotel in Luxor. I can't remember where I finished my last blog entry, but I think it would have been around the time the train arrived in Aswan. So we'll start from there! Aswan is beautiful. With the Nile passing through it, and the friendly people, it makes for a big difference to Cairo! The first night there we went to the Nubian village for dinner. How did we get to the village? Car? Boat? No!!! How boring! We took camels. Mine was Mona Lisa (but I think there were about 3 Mona Lisa's)- one of the tallest, but pretty relaxed. We 'trotted' a bit in the soft sand (10 points to the first person who can find out the real word for trotting on a camel) and after photos ... read more

Luxor is billed tongue and cheek as the hassle capital of Egypt… and the city apparently takes the title pretty seriously and works actively to live up to the hype… enter Luxor. The economy of the city of Luxor is heavily dependent upon tourism… or was anyway prior to this little revolution that happened in the country back in January. As far as revolutions go it actually wasn’t that bad… no civil war, no genocide, minimal casualties and a still functioning government… sounds pretty good for the political future of Egypt… but the revolution was disastrous for tourism as westerners universally watched and gasped in unison as Anderson Coopers’ silvery mane was unceremoniously and publicly frumpled on the streets of Cairo… things just haven’t been the same since. In the face of a shrinking tourist dollar ... read more

Well, thankfully the Egyptian sleeper train was a lot nicer than my experience of the Indian sleeper train. We actually had our own compartment with a door and a sink :-) Luckily Richard decided to keep to himself the fact that he had removed a cockroache from my bed just before we were going to sleep. A rather restless sleep due to the noise of the train so I arrived in Luxor very tired for what was to prove one of our busiest days. First stop after the station we headed to the West Bank to see the Valley of the Kings which contains the tombs of over 62 Pharaohs. Set in the hillside the tombs lead the visitor down a series of corridors and antichambers into the burial chamber and the sarcophagus. Our ticket allowed ... read more