Luxor Pt. 2

We woke up bright and early on Saturday for our day on the West Bank. Our hotel had arranged a driver for us to take us around for 6 hours for 180 Egyptian pounds (about $35 per person), which was definately nice. We drove south along the Nile for awhile before getting to the bridge that goes across. Otherwise we would have needed to take a public ferry and I'm sure we would have been scammed or ended up in the wrong place anyways. Our driver took us to the Valley of the Kings and arranged to pick us up in two and a half hours.

The Valley of the Kings is set into a brilliant mountain landscape that pops out of nowhere about a mile west of the Nile. In typical Egyptian fashion, Luxor was built with the city of the living on the east, where the sun rises, and the city of the dead on the west bank, where the sun sets. Thus the West bank is littered with mausoleums, mortuary temples, and burial complexes like the Valleys of the Kings, Queens, and Nobles. We walked around the Valley for awhile without going into any towns, until some Egyptian native invited us to climb to the top of the mountain with him for a better view. For some reason, photos are allowed in the Valley of the Kings (even the outside, which is ridiculous), so you have to climb away from the regulators if you want to get some good shots. This guy's name was Ahmed and he took us up this series of goat path looking things up this hill. We thought we were getting close until he crested the hill and saw the brunt of the mountain still staring at us. We figured we'd gone too far already to turn back, so we ended up climbing to the very top. I'm glad we did, as the views were breathtaking; you had the Valley of the Kings and the mountains on one side, and then the distant Nile and Luxor on the other. We spent some time at the top of the mountain eating some oranges we'd pilfered from the hotel breakfast before heading down to see some tombs. The ticket we bought is only good for three tombs, so we used my Frommer's book to determine which were the best ones. The Tutankhamen tomb was an extra ticket, and the book said its overrated since everything from it was taken to the British Museum, so we skipped that one. We ended up going to Ramses III, Tutmosis III, and Ramses IV. Tutmosis was the coolest, as it was dug into the side of a cliff about 50 meters up and then you had to access different parts by a skant bridge over a nice black abyss. All were very intricate in their artwork and were cool to look inside.

After Valley of the Kings we drove around a couple of the mountains (including the one we'd just climbed) to come to the Temple of Hatshetsput. The unfortunate site of the 1997 terrorist attack that aimed at eliminating Egypt's Western influence by eliminating the tourist trade, the site is a majestic three-tiered temple structure built as the mortuary palace for Queen Hatshetsput. It was super hot at this point in the day already, so after walking up the great ramp and looking around the columnades we decided to call it a day and head back to the East Bank.


We then attempted to buy train tickets for the return trip home, only to discover that the international car was sold out. Since we're not allowed to ride in the cars with native Egyptians because of the risk of a terrorist attack killing Westerners, we had to forego the train idea and take the public bus home (which, ironically, was full of native Egyptians). After that was taken care of we returned to the Nefertiti to cool down in the terrace area. While Lauren went off shopping for more worthless scarves and Egyptian things, Cameron and I enjoyed some tea and two rounds of the shisha. This time we sampled strawberry and apple flavors. It was the perfect end to our stay in Egypt as we got to watch the sun set over Luxor Temple once again before packing up for home.