Luxor

After a week of hanging out in Cairo with our couchsurfing friend Mostafa, Hala and I boarded a plane down south on the Nile. Luxor was our destination. It was actually cheaper to fly than to take the 20+ hour train. Who knew?

Luxor is a city built for tourism. The famed valley of the kings is just across the Nile and over a ridge from the center of town. There are numerous temples, tombs, monuments and other things to attract tourists from all over the world arriving en mass in huge buses ready to take a picture and head to the next packaged tourist site. Needless to say, Hala and I didn't really like Luxor too much.

Our hotel room was another in a string of disappointments with bathroom doors not closing because they weren't measured properly and bedroom doors not opening because the doorknob is missing. Couple this with a permanently flooded bathroom floor and its a hassle. However our room was nowhere near the hassle we received from around town. As with any other tourist dominated city, the touts are out for blood. People hawking trinkets, taxi or carriage rides, tours of all kinds or rides on the Nile, everywhere we looked we were hounded.

Despite the hassle, Hala and I had ourselves a couple decent trips. For all our hotel's downsides the staff was pretty helpful, especially one young man named Riggi. He sold us on a donkey tour of the West Bank with all its temples and tombs. Early the next morning we headed out intending to finish our trip before the extreme heat of the day. We met our donkey guide, Mohamed at our hotel and followed him to the ferry across the river. Then we met our donkeys.

Hala's was Mini Ha Ha and my stead's name was Cici- which is a little too close to Sissy for my liking. I've never ridden a donkey before and verbally expressed my doubt beforehand that these diminutive creatures could carry my ass up a mountainside. Well they can. Their strength and endurance is quite impressive actually even if I do look ridiculous riding an animal that is a couple feet shorter than I am. I had to be careful on the long rode from the Nile towards the mountain because we rode next to the curb, and my feet were only a few inches off the ground. At least if I fell I wouldn't hurt myself like I did on my camel trek last Christmas.

It took more than an hour or so for our trio of donkey jockeys to make it down the road, up a few hills and finally up and over the crest above the Valley of the Kings. It was by then 8am and Mohamed waited for us in the shade of the ridge as we descended in search of Pharonic treasures. Instead we found a massive horde of European tourists in shorts and sunhats with video cameras filming the undramatic scene.

They had all arrived on dozens of giant A/C tour buses and had tour guides speaking the whole range of European languages. Hala and I tried to escape their masses and we were successful for awhile. With the ticket to the Valley, we are allowed entry into 3 tombs. Our first was a short hike up and around from the crowded center and we found ourselves isolated and alone with enough time to enjoy the ancient tomb, its well preserved wall paintings and its giant stone sarcophagus. After that, it went to shit. We joined a short line to get into our second tomb after our attempts at entering others which we had picked from their descriptions on our guide book were thwarted because they were no longer open to the public. This tomb was sweltering from all the visitors and it was less than enjoyable sharing our experience with a bunch of nasally Brits.

By the time of our escape from the second tomb we were running way late from the time we had told Mohamed. In the interest of finishing quickly, we made our way to what turns out to be the most popular and therefore crowded tomb in the valley. A trip through a literal assembly line of tourists down the entrance of the tomb, around the end and back finished our time in the valley.
I didn't really care for the site, even without the other tourists I think it is an overrated tourist trap as every tomb is empty, few are decorated at all, and the price of admission is larcenous.

But, we made it back up to the ridge to meet Mohamed, Mini and Cici. Mounting our noble steads we headed once again into the heat of the desert. Down another path from where we had come, the sights were amazing. We could see down to the Nile from our vantage, and the craggy desert around us looked like the lunar surface, but scorched by the sun. It was gorgeous and the best part was we were alone to enjoy the views away from hawkers, touts and tourists. On our way around the other side, we had a great view down onto the valley that houses the temple of Hatsepsut. While previously we had wanted to go in, we figured our vantage point was the best we would get and that way we could avoid the cost, the crowds and the heat stroke by calling our trip short.

We stopped to snap a bunch of photos and headed down the mountain stopping at an alabaster shop on our way back down the road to the taxi.

Truthfully, this trip saved our time in Luxor. Those short donkeys are my personal saviors. Any other tour or even renting a taxi for the day would have left me completely disappointed with my time among the temples and tombs of the west bank. But the experience of riding the donkeys away from the crowds and with views that no one else was getting with a friendly young man guide made the day very fun and a total success.

The only other thing worth mentioning in Luxor was our sunset cruise of the Nile. We didn't have to look hard for a boatman to take us out and we settled on Mahmod and his felucca the Endeavor. The trip was quite enjoyable and the sunset over the west bank of the Nile orange and gorgeous. We didnt even let our captain spoil it when he tried to con us out of money we know we didn't owe him. I was talking to Laura on Hala's cell phone when he was pushing us and so she got a small glimpse into my "I DONT TAKE SHIT" persona. In all this was another memorable experience.


We cut our time in Luxor far shorter than we expected, hoping to capitalize on more time on the Sinai peninsula where we are now. We took a short but expensive ferry from the Eastern coast of Egypt across to the southern point of Sinai and are now in the relaxed hippie-ville city of Dahab doing out best to enjoy ourselves despite our (really just my) distaste for other tourists. We are being pretty successful and are enjoying ourselves a lot, more details to come. However, this much tourism makes me impatient for my upcoming trip to Cameroon to visit my friend Brian who is on his way into the Peace Corps. Hopefully next year!