Egypt – Touring the West Bank– Sunday 6 May

Up at 5am again (this is getting to be a habit – even Bogey doesn’t wake me up this early!!!) We go down and try to eat some breakfast – its difficult facing a ‘continental’ breakfast at 5am… I just wish the toast was nicer :(

Anyways, we’re back on the road at 6am headed to the Valley of the Kings. We went early partly to avoid the crush of people, but mostly to avoid the heat of the day – its going to be 40+ degrees again today so it’s best to get the sightseeing done early so we can lay about by the pool.

The Valley of the Kings was great – it’s so freaky to walk into a tomb that’s 2000+ years old and see the painting still on the wall.

We arrived at the visitor centre and then they put us all in little golf buggy trains. They are kinda the same as you’d go on at a theme park. It’s so they can keep the buses etc further from the doors of the tombs to try and protect them a little bit. We got on our train and it took us right to the entrance to the Valley of the King. From there it’s on foot walking up the valley to the individual tombs.

We went into three tombs – the first one was Tuthmosis III. It’s right at the very back of the Valley. To get in first you have to walk up a bunch of stairs then you go inside the side of the cliff and you walk down a bunch of stairs deep into the limestone cliffs. Tuthmosis III is referred to as the ‘Napoleon of ancient Egypt’ because of his military exploits. He was one of the first to build his tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

The next tomb Ramses III – the last of Egypt’s warrior Pharaohs. Then we went inside the tomb of Ramses VI which is right next to Tutankhamun’s tomb. They think it was Rameses VI’s tomb that caused Tutankhamun’s to stay hidden for so long. When they were constructing the tomb for Rameses VI all the rock chips and other debris piled up in front of Tutankhamun’s tomb completely hiding it from view.

The kings resting places seen, now its time to move onto our next adventure… surviving the alabaster tourist trap… Our guide Wael took us to an Alabaster shop that the driver man had recommended. Firstly, they showed us how the chunks of alabaster were turned into objects, then they gave us the standard spiel on all the different types of stone they have. It was entertaining to listen to, but you know it’s a rehearsed speech that they give to every poor punter that walks in the door.

Aidan and I were interested, there were some nice things, but it was quite expensive and the main thing that really caught Aidan’s eye cost USD2000! Colin couldn’t really get anything because he couldn’t lug it all the way around the world. Maggie nearly bought two gorgeous black vases with carvings all over them, but she got annoyed with the sales man. She thought they were too expensive and she was concerned about shipping them back to South Africa. In the end she got cranky and walked out. Wael and the driver man were trying to talk us into going to another alabaster shop that the driver knew about, but we were jack of it by then.

After the Alabaster we went to the Temple of Hatshepsut. This temple seems somehow more impressive because you approach it from so far away. Many of the other temples have civilisation pressing right up against the walls, but the Temple of Hatshepsut is cut into the cliff and you walk up a massive walkway to get to the bottom of the steps.

This is the temple that had the big terrorist attack all those years ago. I think it was in 1998 and bunch of extremist freaks came charging down the sides of the surrounding cliffs with Uzis spraying the tourists with bullets. So nearly 10 years ago and tourism is obviously back on track, but it impacted all tourism in Egypt for a good few years. I’ll never understand how these freaks can think that it will help in anyway. How does making the lives of their fellow country men even harder, by reducing their capacity to earn an income, help bring them closer to their god? Its something no normal person can understand.

This temple’s cut into the stone and has many stairs. Its funny, some of the statues Hetshepsut looks like a female and others she looks male. Some of them even going so far as giving her a beard. The archaeologists assume this was to conform with popular protocol at the time. Hetshepsut was made regent when the Pharaoh died, but the son she was regent for wasn’t her son. For 15 years she basically ruled (the heir was quite young) with the backing of the Amun priesthood.

Since we’d been up so early we were back at the boat by 10:30am – we’d seen the highlights of the West Bank of the Nile in a little under 4 hours and then we were straight back to the side of the pool. We spent the next 6 hours or so laying by the pool as we travelled up the Nile.

Then about 4pm we got to the Nile Lock. This is where they dammed the Nile and the water is at two different levels. We got there about 4pm, but didn’t actually go through until 9pm. It was a bit frustrating because Aidan wanted to get some photos for dad of us going through the lock and we didn’t go through til nearly 9pm so it was dark.

He almost didn’t get any photos at all because I’d hidden his camera fro the towel origami man and hadn’t told him so he thought his camera was MIA… I had to quickly run down to the cabin and retrieve it for him.

He got a couple of good photos, but it’s a bit hard to see in the dark. What they do it open the low side gate, the boat drives in (along with another one) and then the close the gate. Then they fill the section up with water and the boat rises up. Once its level with the high side they open the other gates and the boat drives out into the high side of the Nile. Its quite an impressive engineering feat.