We woke up early again today, we wanted to beat the midday heat again so we set off early to cross the Nile to the west bank of Luxor. We hopped in a water taxi to cross and caught some great views of the Luxor water front early in the morning. To get up a hill and closer to where we would meet our bus, Mudi had arranged for us to try riding donkeys, It wasn’t very different from riding a camel, I guess they were a little more “disobedient” as I recall mine attempted to stop on the side of the road to eat some grass. Otherwise it was a neat way to see how some Egyptians get around (even today!)
Back into our air conditioned bus, we drove another half hour before we arrived at the Valley of the kings. This was one site I was looking forward to as many tombs of ancient Egyptian kings were found buried in the mountainside. In the visitors center we were treated to a 3d rendering of how each tomb looks above and below ground.
We would be exploring only 3 tombs today, but given how exhausted we felt at the end of the first one, 3 was probably a pretty good number. The first tomb we visited was the tomb of Horemheb, if was a long way down stairs and walkways before we arrived at the room for the tomb. It was neat to see that this tomb was unfinished as some of the drawings on the walls still appeared to be in “draft” there was a rough sketch done in red, while a darker black would draw over the red to give a “final outline” it was only then that the sculptor or carver would chip away at the stone to make it a wall carving. It still boggles my mind how so much emphasis was placed in the burial rituals of these kings. Our next tomb was the tomb of Ramesses V. His tomb had a good array of art work, and a very elaborate box for his tomb made out of granite. There was some amazing art within the tomb as well.
According to Mudi we were in for a treat with our third tomb, tomb of Ramesses IV, apparently this one isn’t always open and had been closed for months prior to our arrival so it was somewhat rare that we could go. Inside we found the most colorful tomb we’d seen with intricate art and drawings in the main tomb chamber. By far this was our favorite due to the sheer color of it. Unfortunately we weren’t able to photograph anything in the valley due to preservation rules, but google searches turn out some pretty accurate and amazing images.
We made our way to the nearby temple for Queen Hatshepsut. This was a temple also carved into the side of a mountain, with amazing pillar work and symtrey. We spent a little over an hour exploring this beautiful temple dedicated to the only female ruler Egypt had. She was adored by her people and the temple had been rebuilt partially after being torn down. Sadly though the heat was getting to all of us and there was little shade available, so we hurried back to our air conditioned bus for our next stop, lunch with a local Luxor family.
We arrived to a warm welcome by the children of the house, we each received a high five when we entered and sat in their dinning room. Moody had been hyping this lunch up to us for he entire tour and he wasn’t wrong, every bit of food was amazingly tasty and we all ate until we were stuffed!
We returned to our hotel as most of us were pretty drained from the heat at the temples. We were free until 5 when Moody would take us to a Mosque and a market. Both Gimpy and I passed on going out as we were a bit excursioned out and opted to rest in our room. We chatted and got different odds and ends done with the free time that was actually pretty valuable on such a jam packed tour (like catching up on blog posts). Muscles did end up going though and said it was great to learn more about the Muslim religion and enjoy the Luxor market at night.
We all reconvened at 8 where we would have one final dinner together as a group. Moody enjoyed our group very much and had a small beetle ornament made for each of us (Beetles being a symbol of good luck) We all shared memories of the tour, laughs and a tear or two as this would be the last official time our group would be together. We had a great dinner of kebab, salad and rice before getting to the train station to board an overnight sleeper train towards Cairo.
It was pretty clear most of us were exhausted as the minute the train left the station, doors to our cabins were closed and everyone was off into dream land.
Galleries:
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