The next morning we were up and had breakfast in the hotel. Breakfast was a box with a cheese, jam, yogourt, and bread. There were also tea and coffee on the table. It was the same standard bad breakfast we’d had at most other places.
We hit the road at 10 and drove to the Valley of the Kings about an hour outside Luxor. When we got there we could take pictures on the outside but nothing on the inside where the tombs were or in the tombs themselves.
The ticket included a visit into 3 or the 14 open tombs. You could also pay 100LE to go into the Tomb of King Tut, which still had the mummy in it. Before we went into any of the tombs we sat with Mohammed and he told us about the valley and the tombs and some of the famous people buried there. He also gave us recommendations about what tombs to go into. He recommended tombs with the most to see in terms of colour and hieroglyphs.
The tombs were amazing and had so much colour left on the hieroglyphs and the pictures. It showed that things were so much more elaborate than they seemed and painting and carving the decorations was a time consuming process. I would recommend a visit to the Valley of the Kings to anyone. It was an incredible experience.
Most of us paid to go into the tomb of King Tut. Nikki was one of the first people to go into the tomb. She reached to bottom and screamed. She had been paying attention to the floor because it was steep and slipery. When she looked up there was a guard in traditional garb standing at the bottom. At first she had mistaken it for the mummy of Tut who was actually resting in a glass case.
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When we finished we stopped to get falafel for lunch as a little pull up place. Then we were on the road to go to the other side of the mountain of the valley of the kings to go to Hatshepsut’s Temple. It is said that this temple was built for her by here lover engineer. Hatshepsut had a tunnel from her temple to her tomb built, connecting the two.
We were able to walk around the temple and take all the pictures we wanted. Many parts of the temple had been destroyed but have since been rebuilt to show the glory of the temple as it once was.
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Mohammed and some people walked back to the hotel and we walked to the bazaar. Our first stop was the no-haggle shop outside the bazaar. After we walked into the bazaar to do some haggling while shopping. We got about half way through before some people wanted to turn back because they had bought what they wanted or because they were getting tired. As happens in groups we were unable to make a decision as to what was happening. Maddy told everyone she was going to the end and anyone that wants to come is welcome. She and Jed began walking away. I joined them. She walked a little away and watched as the rest kept trying to figure out what they were going to do. We kept walking slowly to see if anyone would join us. They didn’t so we continued to go into the bazaar.
We made it to the end and started back to haggle for what we wanted. We stopped at a few stored to get some small trinkets. Near the end Maddy saw some necklaces that she liked with stones. We asked how much and they told us to give them a price. I told them 5LE in Arabic and one (a little drunk/high/out of it) argued back a bit while his friend said 20LE. Mady had them down to 15LE and I said 2 for 20LE. The drink agreed and took my money while his friend got angry at him.
We walked back to the hotel. We were stopped by men trying to sell Hash. We were talked to a man who wanted to sell Jed an Australian Dollar for about 10 dollars and was angry when he wouldn’t. We walked past a little boy trying to sell tissues. We told him no thanks and he yelled at us “Australia can fuck off”. It was both funny and sad.
We made it back to the hotel and told everyone of our adventure, especially the kid. We learned that a few people from the group had walked a little further to see if they could find us but when they couldn’t turned around to go back to the hotel as a large group.
Thirty by Thirty 