We got up at some ungodly hour this morning to hitch a ride in a ferry across the Nile to the West Bank to go to the Valley of the Kings. We rode donkeys from there for about an hour – wow they were competitive! If they saw a gap in the donkeys ahead they’d race to get there! At one point my donkey decided to make a run for it, slipping past someone else and leaving confusion in our wake. Apparently I was clutching it so hard it looked like my legs were wrapped completely around the donkey’s girth in an effort to stay on! No stirrups, we just had to rely on our thigh muscles to hold us on.
The Valley of the Kings was fantastic! We visited three tombs: Ramses I, Mermeptah and Ramses IV. Gotta love those Ramseses! They’d apparently just reopened Mermeptah’s tomb, and it had lots of vivid colouring on the wall, unlike Ramses I, whose tomb was really plain.
Then we headed off to see Queen Hapsetshut’s Temple. Amazing view – imagine being queen of all she surveyed!
Instead of donkeys, we took a taxi bus back to the banks of the Nile. The drivers were no less competitive than the donkeys, overtaking tour buses on blind corners and making us generally fear that we’d be joining the pharaohs pretty soon! But we made it back and took a ferry across, before moving our stuff to the riverboat for the next few days.
Before leaving Luxor we treated ourselves to afternoon tea at the Winter Palace. Apparently it costs $1500US per night to stay there! And they knew it too – the waiter looked askance at our jeans, so W got his own back by slurping his Coke from the bottle. Take that!
Two Weeks Away 