LUXOR
Trip Start
Oct 31, 2008
1
4
19
Trip End
Dec 14, 2008
Luxor,
Nile River Valley,
Egypt
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Then we finally got to our Luxor hotel, for a long awaited shower and the use of an actual toilet after 3 days of picking the nearest bush. We ate locally and naturally our guide knew a jewellery shop just a few doors down he recommended. Kris and I bought cartouches, which are a piece of silver or gold jewellery with your name on it in heirogyphics. I was very happy with mine, a nice silver necklace with gold symbols. Next up was the market or El Souk where again we drew much attention and were hassled no end despite a lot of them saying, "no hassle. You just look in my shop" yeah right! In the end we did buy a statue and a few bits n pieces but in general I have been very restrained in Egypt, only one dust collector Julia ? I learnt ;lots about the different ways they fake stone sculptures though. One they use tar filled with sand and try to pass it off as basalt stone, another is a coloured resin sprinkled with a little lapis dust to pass for solid lapis lazuli and all of these they often cover in rock dust or bury for a few months to make them look and smell like rock. In the end I settled for a sculpture made of alabaster chips and a white cement like substance that binds it all together.
The market is a really interesting place though, lots of spice stalls and scarves, statues, sheesha pipes and Papyrus prints. If you have a thick skin just walking and looking can be fun, but I think Kris is getting sick of the offers for his wife, as am I to be honest.
Our next day in Luxor was spent at the Valley of the kings and the temple of Hatshepsut. We started at Hapshepsuts temple which is quite different from the other we have seen, its 3 stories high and is carved into the rock face of some cliffs. She apparently ruled Egypt for 25 years, she was the daughter of a pharaoh, a pharaoh herself and the mother of the next pharaoh Thutmos the 3rd. Thutmos was her step son and heir to the throne, but as he was too young she sent him away to be educated while she ruled. She even changed her name to Hatshepsu (male version of her name) and had statues of herself with a beard and masculine features. Also as the pharaoh is supposed to be a god on earth she made up a story about her being the lover of the god of fertility so that as his wife, she was a god. A little weird as in these stories carved in the walls she looks like a man. Anyway in the end her step sone thutmos came back to claim the throne and had her killed and tried to scrub out all evidence of her existence. Anyway when we moved onto the valley of the kings we also visited his tomb, apparently he never lost a battle, so was a kick arse pharaoh. We actually got to the valley of the kings on donkeys, which was quite funny as we bounced along, absolutely at the whim of our donkeys as they sped up and slowed down as they pleased. Some didn't like to be behind certain donkeys and some obviously did or didn't like each other, it was quite comical, and when they pinned their ears back and went for it , so so funny. So other than Thutmos 3rd we visited, Ramses the 1st and Ramses the 9th. The tombs were often down lots of steps and hot and stuffy, but the walls were all decorated with the most colourful and ,mostly un disturbed carvings and drawings. Apparently this site was chosen to bury the pharaohs because they require a pyramid to acend to the afterlife, but as pyramids are a big come rob me sign they chose this mountain, which is in the general shape of a pyramid to bury the pharaoh inside tombs dug deep into the ground and covered them in rubble so robbers wouldn't know where to dig. There are 62 of them there and some tobs are really deep, King Tuts tomb is tiny in comparison to most of them.
That night we narrowly escaped some shameful karaoke experience in a dingy 80's style bar under the hotel. We arrived in the bar to hear an old woman start to sing who the *uck is alice!!! How classy, and for the record she was terrible! But as we heard this we ran off, thank god , because Mostafa had designs of signing us all up to sing terrible songs unbeknownst to us! So everyone ended up on the roof terrace one by one as they ran for their lives (well pride anyway).
On our last day in Luxor we visited Karnak Temple which is huuuuge and spectacular. This is the temple with the forest of columns all decorated in relief sculpture and hieroglyphics. We spent a couple of awe struck hours there with some more of Mostafa's historical accompaniment, which as always was really interesting.
Late rin the afternoon we had to say goodbye to half of our group who were finishing up and going back to Cairo, a bit sad actually as we met some lovely people, but that's the nature of travel. So off they went and we headed to the bus again and drove to Hurghada.
