Around the World in 180 Days: July 23-26: Luxor, Egypt

We flew from Istanbul to Luxor with a layover in Cairo. And guess what: Egypt is very, very hot in the summer. It was about 107 F each of our three days in Luxor. Although it was much hotter than anywhere else we had been, it was almost more comfortable than the humid 93 F in Rome because it was so dry. I also forced myself to wear pants and long sleeves all the time so as not to be culturally insensitive or just look like an ignorant tourist. We stayed at a place called the Queens Valley hotel, and it was decently comfortable for 20 USD per night. However, the wireless internet did not work in our room on the third floor, so after one night, we switched to a room on the floor below. The new room kind of smelled like poop, but the window had been open and there was a line of horse-drawn carriages outside, so we assumed it was that. We closed the window and turned on the AC, but found it still smelled! We decided to give it a while, and I went into the bathroom. It smelled much worse in there, and I saw why: on a ledge at the end of the bathtub was a huge pile of small animal poop! Jeff was lucky enough to have to go downstairs and explain to the reception staff, who didn’t know the word “poop,” the situation. Thankfully, it was cleaned and didn’t smell again after that.

Our first day in Luxor, we took a tour of the west bank. The first stop was the Valley of the Kings. I believe our guide told us there are 62 tombs in all, but only 8 are able to receive tourists, and only 3 are open at any one time (which are on a rotating basis). Cameras had to be left on the bus, so unfortunately we don’t have any photos. But WOW is the only thing we have to say. All of the tombs are different sizes, mostly depending on how long the king ruled/how much time he had for his tomb to be built. The tombs are carved underground into the mountains, and were carved out using only hammers and chisels. That doesn’t sound too bad if you picture only one tiny chamber big enough to fit a corpse. But these tombs are huge, some with ceilings about 9 feet high! We weren’t able to go into all parts of the “medium size” tomb we saw, but it had at least 8 chambers. The walls were covered in plaster, and then drawn and painted upon. If a tomb was finished, all the walls were covered with drawings. They painted them with yellow (egg yolk), blue (lapis lazuli), black (ash), and red (animal blood), and then coated everything with honey wax to preserve it. I never imagined the color to be as vibrant as it was, or anything to be as well preserved as it was! The tombs date back to 2500 BC but appear only 100 years old or so. Valley of the Queens was equally impressive, but the tombs were smaller and we could only see two of them.

The Temple of Queen Hatshepsut was amazing, but sadly 80 percent of it is a reconstruction. She ruled, acted, and dressed like a man to reassert her power, but she was unpopular with subsequent kings. They destroyed most of her temple, chiseling out her face and name wherever they appeared. Jeff and I walked into one area of the temple and a local man motioned for Jeff to take a picture of him and I with our camera. It was odd but harmless, so I said ok. We took a picture together, then he took a few of Jeff and me. Nice guy, right? He handed back the camera and made a motion for money. A trap! We thankfully learned our lesson early.

Earlier that morning we talked briefly with the guy who ran the breakfast room at our hotel. He had been friendly and interested in our plans for our Egypt visit. Later that evening, we went out walking, looking for a place for dinner, and ran into him on the street. He chatted us up, asking what we were up to. He said he knew a great place for dinner and he’d show us the way. It sounded good to try a local place, so we willingly accepted. Mustafa (Breakfast Room Guy) talked about tons of things, asked us lots of questions, invited us to dinner with his family the following night (it was going to be a holiday), said he could give us a tour of Luxor, etc. The offers were a bit too friendly for my taste, but I assumed that’s the way it is in Egypt. He ended up bringing us to this place we had eaten at twice already (delicious and local!), and suggested we go get a tea. We got tea and shared a hookah, and he talked about this amazing local market Luxor has one day a week. He said he was going afterwards to go buy some saffron and insisted that we come. He also offered to go get his motorbike and take us there on that, but we refused…seemed pretty dangerous. Turns out this “market” is just an enormous air conditioned building where tourists can buy crummy souvenirs. We got duped into buying one papyrus each. They look really cool, and the vendor insisted that they are hand-painted, but since buying them we have seen them at every other shop for cheaper (even though we got ours for “half price”). Mustafa was trying to push other junk on us too, and seemed peeved that we only bought two little cheap things. We walked outside, he asked Jeff to buy him a Coke, was very distant, and told us vaguely how to get back to the hotel. So weird. We learned that most people here aren’t nice without a price (even though we paid for his tea, hookah, possibly dinner, and bought some trash he’ll get commission on…).

The following day was Jeff’s 23rd birthday (hooray!) and we took a tour of the east bank. The east bank has Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple; both were amazing. Karnak Temple took 1,500 years to construct and has 134 massive pillars that are about 70 feet tall, each with beautiful carvings and hieroglyphics. Luxor Temple was very interesting, as it has only recently been discovered (100 years ago maybe? I forget.). Until then, it had been completely covered over with sand. The temple exhibits Ancient Egyptian, Roman, Islamic, and Christian culture. The Ancient Egyptian aspect is obvious: obelisks (one of which was removed and brought to Rome), sphinxes, and enormous pharaoh statues. In the outer courtyard, there is a statue of Aphrodite (Roman Empire). Inside, there is a mosque (Islam) which was built on top of the temple when it was still covered with sand. The original doorway is about 2 floors up! And lastly, in the back of the temple, there are paintings of Jesus and the apostles the Coptic Christians made over the original Egyptian drawings.

That night, we tried to go to a highly rated restaurant for Jeff’s birthday dinner, but sadly, it was closed for renovation (I also wanted to take him to a floating ice cream parlor on the Nile, but that too was closed!). We wandered around until we found a quiet garden-esque place and settled down there. The streets were hectic because it was a holiday to celebrate the birthday of a prominent Egyptian Muslim man from a couple hundred years ago. People were selling candies, toys, bread, hats, noisemakers, tons of stuff. There was lots of music and people dancing, and everyone was genuinely friendly to us without trying to sell us anything. It was very cool to see such a community celebration! We headed back to the hotel to get some sleep before going out to Aswan the following day.