The final stop and day on the Nile cruise brought us to Luxor. Previous adventures of the trip are here: Cairo, Pyramids of Giza, Aswan, sailing day Aswan-Luxor.
We arrived to Luxor late in the night. The next day we met our guide in the foyer. The new guide was nicked named Doctor. He actually had a doctorate degree in ancient Egypt history or archeology. On the way to the first sight, he showed a couple of videos that proved him to be a celebrity of Luxor. Indeed, he was greeted by so many people along the way that after a day with him I had no doubt about his achievements. Also, he had one superpower that saved this tour from being another pile of historical facts.
Valley of the Kings
The first ride from the cruise ship was to the right side of the river Nile into the Valley of the Kings. Sounds royal, no? At first, I was quite excited to visit the valley. Until I understood that I am going into a cemetery to see tombs. This is not a very unusual thing to do, I mean, visit a cemetery. However, I was struck by this experience being so disrespectful. First of all, there were a huge amount of tourist, so the tombs were crowed inside. In one of the tombs, there was a local man that was offering to take pictures and then asked for money. In the other tomb, a Russian speaking man climbed over a clearly fenced section and took a self-guided tour in it. And when he got pushed out of there by guards, he just said “oh, I am just a foreigner here, I did not understand”. Some lady shouted at him in English “It is a Holy place here, how can you be so disrespectful?!”. Even though the tombs were painted with beautiful hieroglyphs, I regretted going there with all my heart. The Valley of the Kings is a place of rest. When I noted that to our guide he said that he understands the morals as a human being. But it brings in around 10 percent of GDP to Egypt and morals are not good enough reason to stopping this kind of flow. Not counting in all the archaeological grants and expeditions. Another thing that was hard to digest, was the mummies in the museums. They were taken out of their tombs and just shelved open in the glass boxes in multiple levels sometimes. Is it when you die your body doesn’t matter anymore? Do you rest in peace if your dead body is on a shelf in a museum? On the other hand, pharaohs wanted an eternal life. So, here it is.
Al-Deir Al-Bahari Temple
Just around the corner of the Valley of the Kings stands a beautiful temple of Al-Deir Al Bahari. After a shocking visit to the tombs, this was a fun attraction. In this temple, our guide revealed his superpower of reading the hieroglyphs! He sounded the pictures in an ancient language and then translated them into English. The story of the temple was quite entertaining. In short, once Egypt was ruled by Pharaoh Hatshepsut. She overtook the whole throne and left her stepson Thutmose III aside. Then, twenty years after her death Thutmose III tried to erase all the writings about her in the temple. So, up until now you can see many scratched places on the walls. The temple had a nice view of the valley and impressive architecture as well.
Alabaster Shop
On the way out of the Valley of the Kings, we stopped at the guide’s friend’s alabaster shop. Alabaster is a famous mineral found deep in the desert around Luxor. Craftsmen make a different kinds of statues, lamps, and charms from it. It is believed that alabaster absorbs energies. For example, it can absorb negative energy in your room, or if left with other crystals, double their healing properties. Guide were telling us that there is a fake alabaster in the street markets that might be toxic, so buying from the shop is much safer. Believe it or not.
By the entrance of the shop, we were met by five or so men that were showing the process of working with this mineral. While doing their work they sang and played a drum. After we tried the parts of the process ourselves we were taken into the shop. As usual, we were greeted with tea and coffee. The air conditioned shop was calming and looking at the exposition I had some time to calm down after experiences in the tombs. One of the men guided me through a shopping experience also adding some compliments of how amazing woman I am. Without loosing my head over this old as a mankind selling technique I chose some small souvenirs and even got a couple of pieces on top of it. But the greatest gift that I got was back at the craftsmen. They called me before getting back to the van and gave two whole pieces of raw alabaster!
Karnak Temple and Open Air Museum
After lunch on our boat and a short nap, the van took us back to Luxor. This time we went to explore the left side of the river. In between our conversations I asked the guide if there are scorpions around Luxor. He waved his hand saying that there are non of them. A minute later, at the entrance to the Karnak Temple, a dog was having a seizure. It was trembling and we all saw that it was about to die. One man called an animal rescue organisation and it was hard not able to do anything for that poor animal. When we were wondering what might have happened to it, the guide proposed he was bitten by a scorpion most likely. Great…
The temple was a huge building, with a very impressive colonnade and plenty of huge parts laying around in a wide field. We exited the complex through the back gates and walked a couple of kilometers on the renovated path that connected two parts of Luxor: Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple. The evening started to show its signs by letting down the dusk and lighting up street lamps.
Papyrus Museum
After finding out that we haven’t been to a papyrus museum, our guide made a quick arrangement to one nearby. As an art and nature lover, I was very curious to see how they make paper from the papyrus plant. One of the hosts in the museum showed us a short process and what the plant looks like. Papyrus grows in the North of Egypt, the delta of the Nile, so I wasn’t able to see it in the wild this time. After the showcase we looked around the museum which was, surprise, a shop. I didn’t buy anything as non of the pieces spoke to me. It was mainstream art with Egyptian gods and goddesses, or horoscopes. But it was a nice shop and I would trust that they sell real papyrus and not the banana leaves. Banana leaves are sold as papyrus for very cheap, usually in the street markets.
Luxor Temple
The culmination of our today’s tour was the Temple of Luxor. Everybody was tired from talking and listening, and to see this impressive temple we gathered our last energy. But it was worth it. Again, I do not recall many details about it but the architectural structure and hieroglyphs were beautiful. I took many photos following our guide’s instructions “this is important, take a photo of it”. I might vaguely remember something about the first menu on the wall, but I am not sure. The temple was lighted beautifully with lights and the Moonlight and that was good enough for me. After that the van took us back to the cruise ship for our last night on the river.
Up next week: my favorite hotels and restaurants in Egypt.
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