Originally posted on May 15, 2004
We arrived in Luxor after the unpleasant and stinky train ride very tired. We unloaded our stuff in yet another gorgeous hotel. I am so unused to this 4-star lifestyle after hostels and cheap motels for the last year. It’s just unreal to get out and have someone take your bags for you and be greeted in the morning by the biggest breakfast buffet you have ever seen in your life. Pools with towels and cabana bars, marble floors and air conditioning, it’s so much more than I expected for the “budget tour”. It’s luxury embodied for a student traveling on a tight budget.
We flipped on the movie channel and Ben fell asleep watching “The World is Not Enough” while I was typing away trying to record the memories. I kept asking him how to spell things and to remind me of the names of gods and pharaohs because at this point it is all sort of mush in my head. I think the most amazing thing about it all is how old it is, and the proof that this great civilization and specific characters that seem like myths to me were real. When I see the hieroglyphs carved into the wall, I imagine slim, fine featured, olive-skinned craftsmen carefully etching the thousands of characters all day. It’s just amazing to me to think how different the world must have been and to try and comprehend what life might have been like 4500 years ago.
After a good night’s rest in Luxor we woke up at 5:45 and got ready to meet our guides at 7am. We have to meet them early because any later and the heat in the Valley of the Kings would be unbearable. Even at 8:30am it was hot as a frying pan and almost no shade. However, we saw the tomb and mummy of King Tutankhamen as well as Ramses IV and IX. The colorful decorations and inscriptions are well-preserved due to the extreme dryness and shelter from the sun. We saw depictions of the kings’ great deeds and their wives, the gods who are protecting them and their hopes for the afterlife. Everything inside them was gorgeous and I seeing them is like a dream. Studying all this so long ago and then actually seeing it makes so much difference in understanding and interest.
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| Valley of the Kings |
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| Tut's Throne |
After the Valley of the Kings we visited an alabaster factory and saw some gorgeous vases that sparkle and are translucent in the light. I ended up buying this bowl that was not made of alabaster, but polished onyx. I was thinking to myself as I contemplated buying it and started talking the guy down, am I really going to buy a bowl? What am I going to do with a bowl?” But I just loved it. It was so beautiful and I was immediately attracted as soon as I saw it tucked away in a little corner. So from now on, I will be eating fruit salad from an absolutely beautiful piece of Egyptian pottery until I can think of a more useful employment.
Leaving the shop was tough because it was air conditioned and cool inside, and I knew that the oven and harsh sun that awaited me outside would be intensified because it was around noon. We visited the temple of Hatshepsut, the most famous Egyptian queen, and our spunky and hilarious guide led us around telling us stories and flirting with my brother. (It was a girl this time). The temple was more dramatically cut out of the sandstone cliffs that make the Valley of the Kings, and even though it was hot, it was interesting to see the queen’s works and how her son tried to erase all traces of her from history because he resented her taking the throne in his stead.
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| Temple of Hatshepsut |
We had the choice at this point to visit either the Valley of the Queens, or go to the Valley of the Workers. We decided we had had enough of royalty and we wanted to see the real people of Egypt, the common man, the “proletariat” as my brother said. We were told also by our guide that these tombs have the most intact paintings of any existing. They really did look like they were painted yesterday, just like she said. The burial sites were just outside the small stone village where the workers lived. We saw what their houses would have looked like and got an idea of how a non-noble would have lived then. Though it was small and probably less grand, I was happy with the decision we made to skip the Valley of the Queens.
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| Valley of the Workers |
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| Temple of Karnak (and a teeny Ben at the base) |
We were given a small break after the packed morning and were taken back to the hotel to lunch and to rest, recover from the heat basically. We flopped onto our hotel beds, turned on the movie channel and didn’t move for two hours. It was so cool and there was no sun beating down on us, it was bliss. We packed up our stuff, checked out of the hotel, and got some lunch in the bar. At 3pm, our guide picked us back up and we headed out to the Temple of Karnak to see more of Ramses’ self-glorification but also one of the most impressive pieces of architecture I have ever seen. The pillars in Karnak are gigantic and thick, it’s like walking through a forest of stone redwoods. There are two long rows of sphinx’s with a ram’s head leading up to the front gate of the temple. It’s also enormous. It must cover at least 4 square kilometers complete with a sacred lake and 3 separate shrines. I keep thinking I will get tired of seeing the hieroglyphics and that stuff will get boring, but it’s not. It still continually amazes me how these people rendered such beautiful and lasting creations with such perfection.
My brother and I were talking about the myth of modernism which, in part, deals with the question: why should we think that because we are the most modern society we are the smartest and the most advanced ever? While it is a controversial statement, it has some truth to it I think. We could learn a thing or two from the ancients. And though I am so overwhelmed by their ingenuity, should I be so in awe of a people who had the same brain capacity as I do now? Their minds were just as capable then as ours are today. That makes me think real hard when I see what they have made still standing in perfect condition 50 centuries later.
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| Temple of Luxor |
We then moved on to the Temple of Luxor which is smaller and less grand, but more intimate and with traces of the Coptic Christians and Alexander the Great inside. It set us up well for our visit that we have to Alexandria tomorrow. Plus our fantastic guide is from there and she was telling us all about what we have to do and places to eat and what to see when we get there. She made me want to stay a week, not just a day.
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| Temple of Luxor |
After the temple visits it was time to say goodbye to our guide who I loved and we took pictures with her and she made us promise to send them to her. After our tourist activities for the day were over, we were dropped back off at the hotel with no room, and three hours to kill. We decided to hit up the pool. We had a nice relaxing dip to cool off, which was much needed before the all night sleeper train we had awaiting us, and got a chance to unwind and stretch out after a long day of sightseeing. I am so happy with this tour so far and I can’t express very well how different everything here is. It’s just incredible to see this part of the world and to see the modern and the ancient working together. I also get to practice my French almost every day because there are so many French people on vacation here! Napoleon’s influence still persists today I guess.
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| Hend, our guide, and I |
That, my friends, was our tour in Luxor. Moving back to Cairo with a day trip to Alexandria next. Then on to the Sinai peninsula to finish out the tour. Looking forward to some diving in the Red Sea on the last day. I will try to keep up to date. Home in ONE WEEK. Unbelievable.
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