Egypt / Luxor, Valleys of Kings and Queens & more/ Dec 2002

The 2nd half of our Egypt trip was magical. We took an overnight train from Cairo to Luxor, whre we stayed at the Luxor Hilton.

The hotel was nice, they had a neat jewelry shop, and the ability to take a Falluca boat ride; which we did. Our Captain (Captain Hook we called him) had a faithful companion, whom we nicknamed Mohammad Ali. He was very interested in all things American, and he coined the phrase "Share me" which we still joke about today. They took us to Banana Island, where we were able to have tea with the locals and eat sugar cane from the fields. Watching the sun set over the Nile from the boat was amazing. It was such a wonderful day.

The next morning, we got up oh so early to take a Hot Air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings and Queens. The sun rise was phenomenal! We went over a few villages, some buildings with thatched roofs of sorts, some with no roofs at all. The village children running and waving at us; all with big smiles on their faces. It was amazing to see the Nile from above. I thought it was interesting to see the stark difference between the greenery on one side of the Nile and the desert on the other. We learned the word "Baksheesh" very well. All those village children ran to the balloon when we landed and expected gifts and tips for smiling and waving at us! :) They want your ballooning gifts(t-shirts,etc), money, and anything else they can part you with. Careful though, some will attempt to reach into your purse/wallet and help themselves!

If touching a pyramid, or riding a camel to get to one, didn't satisfy all my girlhood dreams about Egypt, stepping foot into Tutankaman's tomb in the Valley of the Kings sure did. We were told that for as many tombs as have been found in the valleys, there are many more still hidden beneath the sand and in the mountains. It's so very easy to believe. I wanted to drop everthing and go digging in the dirt! We ventured from tomb to tomb in both valleys...awestruck at the magnificence and splendor that used to be. Each tomb had lots of rooms, each with specific purposes and were decked out in "lootables"! I was so amazed at the hieroglyphics that when we got home, I bought a book, went through all our photos and tried to decipher them! (I didn't get very far...it's harder than it looks!) Some of the more fragile pictures or carvings are behind glass, which is understandable, but most of the tombs had walls that were not protected by glass. They did however have walkways in them that you had to stay on, and I remember seeing guards about in a few of them.

For a few $$ , you could bribe the local workers to show you 'something special'. We were taken to a recently unearthed, but not yet open to tourists, tomb. We were told that it contained the mummies of the workers who had built one/some? of the tombs. This is one of the pictures of mummies we took. The experience was very cool, but a little creepy. We beat it out of there fairly quickly.

After we left the Valley of the Kings and Queens, we visited what we called the "Ketchup place". It was our pet name as none of us could properly pronouce Queen Hatshepsut, which sounded a little like ketchup to us! It's real name is The Temple of Deir el Bahari. It's an amazing place, nestles in the foothills of the mountains. I remember that we able to see it from the balloon. From the main road, you had to walk through souvenir alley to get to the temple. On both sides of the long walkway, people shouting at you constantly were souvenirs of every shape, size and color. This type of thing was everywhere we went, and there was just no getting away from it.

Next we visited the step pyramid at Sakkara. It's an amazing pyramid that is surrounding by very interesting walls. It is still unclear to me as to what they were built for, but if anyone knows, please feel free to fill me in. We stood by the pyramid and if your facing away from it, you can see nothing but sand. It was here that we finally earned a healthy respect for the desert. The pyramid is the oldest of all the pyramids in Egypt, and was built for a pharoh in the 3rd dynasty by Imhotep (yes, Imhotep, like in the mummy movies!)

Before heading back to our hotel, we took a brief stop at a factory. We were shown how rugs are made, you know all those beautiful silk, or wool rugs that one sees everywhere. We sometimes kick ourselves for not buying one, but all we saw were children doing the work, and that disturbed us. We were told that the children were there learning how to make rugs, as a skill for later use in life and that none of the rugs that we saw for sale were made by a child's hands. We didn't believe any of it. Later we found out that some of the more complicated designs are to difficult for an adults big hands to make, and children are regularly used to make these, and paid very little, in the guise of "schools".

We stopped by the Ramessuem and took a few photos, but it was the Temple of Amun at Karnak that I was enthralled with. The pillars were amazing, and my jaw was dropped to my knees through the entire tour. The temple is filled with statues, pillars, obelisks, and ruins still in their places. It's an outdoor temple,open to the elements; but is still amazingly intact. You cannot miss seeing this temple if you make it to Luxor.

Our trip to Egypt was amazingly memorable. I would not necessarily suggest doing it with very small children, as there is a ton of walking involved, and most of it's not stroller accessible in any way. If you want to bring the kids, my suggestion is to wait until they are quite a bit older, say at least 6 or 7.