One Day in Luxor

8/1/2009

My wakeup call came far too early on Saturday morning.  We had been told that breakfast would be around 4:30, and so I set my watch alarm at 4:20am, and when I woke up, I realized the train was stopped.  I quickly changed, brushed my teeth, again making sure to use bottled water, and then gathered up my backpack and headed next door to Sarah and Audrey’s room.  Right as I was about to knock, the door opened.  They were as confused as I was about the train being stopped, and I came in and sat down on the bed.  We were all pretty groggy, and just waited to see what happened.  The train started moving again, and we continued waiting for breakfast.  A knock came on the door a while later, and it was our steward giving us a 10 minute warning to breakfast.  He returned again with three trays of food.  Breakfast consisted of every form of bread imaginable – croissant, role, sliced bread, muffin – and jam.  It was edible, but nothing amazing.  We finished up, and got ready for the long day ahead of us, and then we were at the Luxor station.  As we unloaded the train, we met up with the LLC’s again, Matt, Lisa, Simon and Sadhika, and started our day before the sunrise again. 
People say you need five days to see everything in Luxor, but we managed it in one.  As soon as we exited the train station, we were, per usual, ambushed with cab drivers and men asking if we needed tour guides and had to fight our way away from them.  Once we were free, we conferred with the LLC’s and decided to go with them.  They were going to a hotel with one of the men, and he was going to show them information about the tour the hotel offered, and then they were going to decide from there.  That is how we found ourselves wondering the sleepy streets of Luxor as the sun rose, watching as the city woke up to start the day.  We arrived at the hotel in question, and were reassured when it turned out to be one of the nicer ones.  It was refreshing to walk in to the air conditioned lobby of the hotel, for even as the sun was rising, the heat of the day was increasing.  We sat in the welcoming couches around the center table, and were shown all of the stops the tour would include, and told prices for the day.  The offer included an air conditioned mini-bus for only our group on nine, a guide that spoke English, five stops on the West Bank before lunch, and two stops on the East Bank after.  After some negotiating on the price, we came to an agreement, and waited for our tour guide to arrive.  It was a little after 7:30 when he showed up, but none of us were complaining about the wait, we were happy to rest in the clean, cool lobby after our adventure on the train.  We piled into the van, which was surprisingly comfortable and spacious, and set out for the day.  As we were crossing the Nile, we had our first stop of the day to take some pictures.  The van just pulled over on the bridge – still in a lane of traffic – and we all piled out onto the sidewalk to take pictures.  Then, we reloaded and moved on to our first stop of the day, the Valley of the Kings.
It was still early in the morning when we arrived, but the heat was already stifling, and there was not much shade available.  The tickets we had allowed us to go in to three of the tombs, and so our guide picked out his three favorite, consulting us to make sure we agreed, and we set off.  The first was the only two level tomb and belonged to Tuthmosis III, before entering, our guide gave us the history, and explained to us what we would see.  He was nice enough to stop in the shade to explain it to us, and then it was off to the tomb.  We had to climb up a slightly rickety staircase, already crowded with other tourists and travelers to get to the entrance, and then upon entering, we began our descent.  Only a few feet in to the tomb, the temperature was increasing, and by the time we made it to the burial chamber, it felt like we had willingly climbed into an oven, but with more humidity!  The detail of the hieroglyphics, and how well they were preserved was amazing to me!  After we had gotten our fill of the tomb, we made our way back up the stairway, and as we neared the entrance, it was already getting much cooler.  When I stepped out into the fresh air, it felt like I was stepping into air conditioning (despite the fact that it was probably already in the mid 90’s out)!  The second tomb we saw belonged to Sety II, and the last one to Horemheb.  Both were just as impressive as the first, but not as warm.
From the Valley of the Kings, we moved on to Hatchepsut’s Temple, which was an impressive sight.  It was built in to the side of a cliff, and had been restored some to look more like its original form.  It was three levels and had columns, statues, and carvings everywhere, and a wide ramp leading up to the top floor.  Looking out from the temple, it was crazy to see how defined the line between the desert and the oasis of the fertile Nile valley was, there was a very distinct point at which the yellows, browns and reds of the desert transformed into lush green plant life. 
Our last stop on the West Bank of the river brought us to the temple of Ramses II, and it was amazing.  We spent a lot of time taking pictures and looking around in awe before our guide told us that we were not even in the temple yet, we were just in the entrance.  Everything was so well preserved, and we were told that it was because the temple was buried in sand for many years, and that protected the colors and the carvings from time.  By the time we left this temple, we were all warm, tired and hungry, and so it was off to lunch.  On the way we stopped at two huge statues and took some pictures, and then crossed the Nile to the East Bank where we found food.  I had packed snacks, so I was good to go for the day, but everyone else selected McDonald’s as their restaurant of choice.  It was the best view I have ever seen from a McDonald’s, it looked out over the Luxor Temple and in the far distance, the Nile River.  It was also three stories, and so the higher we got, the better the view.  Once we were all fed and cooled down – there was some nice, and much needed, air conditioning inside the McDonald’s – we made out plans for the afternoon.  We elected to just view the Luxor temple from the outside, and instead, go for a Faluca ride on the Nile.  A choice I was very happy with.  As amazing as all of the temples were, they were all starting to blend together into a blur of amazing statues, carvings and columns.
The one stop we had left before the Nile boat ride was the Karnac Temple, the most impressive one of the day.  If I remember properly, it covers 65 acres; in any case, it was absolutely massive.  The heat kept us from exploring for too long, but we managed to take the time to soak it all in.  We left the temple, and after being shown how to get back to the train station from the boat dock, said goodbye to our guide and driver.  We then were led down to the boat dock by the boat captain they had arranged for us, all of our backpacks and bags in tow.  The falucas (I’m not exactly sure how to spell that, but I am going with spelling it phonetically) were gorgeous.  Mostly white with brightly colored flags and paintings decorating the mast.  They also had covers of brightly patterned sheets, and plush cushions lining the benches.  We were led across one and into ours, the Mona Lisa.  Once we were all settled in, we set sail.  It was quite the process getting out of the dock area.  There were young boys with ropes on the boats lining the exit, and we kept maneuvering back and forth until finally we were clear and the sail was put up.  We made our way upstream for a while, crossing over and moving in the shallower waters with a weaker current.  It was very relaxing and the breeze was refreshing after a long day in the heat.  All of us just sat and enjoyed.  We made it up to Banana Island, but opted not to stop.  As we got close, the wind died down, and we just sat, stationary waiting for the wind to pick back up.  As we were waiting, the river police showed up.  They check all of the boats for proper licensing once a day, and in Egypt, it is customary to tip the police.  Strange.  We then made our way back downstream and to the dock again, where we thanked our faluca driver, and unloaded.  We walked toward the train station, and along the way stopped to watch the sunset over the Luxor temple and the Nile.  After the sunset, it was time to go catch our train, and we made our way the three or four more blocks to the train station.  We showed up in perfect time, with just long enough to figure out where we needed to wait before our train came rumbling up.  I think it may have been the exact same train that took us to Luxor, and now we were heading back to Cairo.  This time around, unfortunately, there was someone else in my cabin, and they didn’t seem to speak any English.  For peace of mind, I grabbed the blanket off my bed and my pillow after dinner, and curled up on the floor of Sarah and Audrey’s room to sleep.  I felt I would not have gotten a very good night’s sleep with all of my worldly possessions (most specifically my passport!) available to a total stranger.  I was tired enough that the floor was very comfortable, and I even slept better than I had the night before because I was comforted by being in the same room as friends.  In fact, we all fell asleep pretty quickly after dinner and a “shower”.