We boarded the busses, several of us upset by the wake up calls, and headed for The Valley of the Kings. We stopped and had a photo op at a couple of scenic spots on the way. Finally arriving at Valley of the Kings, we are again informed that if we want to take a still camera in we would have to pay roughly $10 US, and if we wanted to take a video camera it was outrageous and we should reconsider. I paid the $10. The tombs are remarkable. The carvings and paintings are fantastic. The layout of the tombs in some cases is very complicated, and it’s not unusual for the archaeologist to think they’ve reached the end and discover another passage or set of chambers. The Egyptians really took their afterlives seriously!

After the resting place of Kings, we traveled to the Valley of the Queens. Unlike the Valley of the Kings which looks like nothing but sand, dirt and hillside and the tombs are cut and dug into the hills and ground, the main attraction in the Valley of the Queens is a temple dedicated to Queen Hatshepsut. The temple can be seen from quite a distance, and seems to be in a very lonely locations, surrounded by high cliff walls on almost three sides (this is also, unfortunately where the bus load of tourist was shot a couple years ago). From the temple there is a commanding view of the Nile River Valley. The temple is in fairly good condition and is filled with beautiful hieroglyphic most of which are painted, and there are several statues/pillars that bear the image of the Queen. The Egyptians never forgot the ceiling as an option for artistic expression, and the ceiling of the temple/tomb is painted to resemble the night sky, in blue with gold stars. There were also tombs in the Valley of the Kings that were painted similarly. As for shopping ops, both Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens has its share of make shift stores, and wandering salesmen. Things are cheap, and bargain hard – nothing here is valuable.

We returned to the rendezvous point in Luxor to meet up with the other 15 busses for our 3+ hour trip back to the ship. After returning to our rendezvous point we sat and waited approximately 3 hours before Egyptian security decided they wanted to leave (in otherwords we left 3 hours LATE). At first they tried to blame 2 passengers that they said were late coming back to another bus, we eventually found out that that was false. What it boiled down to was our escort didn’t feel like leaving yet…(”Egyptian efficiency” is an oxymoron). We were approximately 3 1/2 hours late returning to the ship (one of the busses brokedown on the way back), and the ship (especially Captain Erik) was very happy and relieved to see us. They had expected us hours earlier and had no way to find out where we were because communications within Egypt are horrible…

Both Luxor and Karnack were dedicated to Amun-Ra, and once a year the statue of Amun-Ra kept at Karnack was paraded down the Avenue of the Sphinx (the broad avenue lined by stone sphinxes that connected the two temples) to Luxor temple, where the priests gathered only the most beautiful and worthy virgins to commune with Amun-Ra, and the citizens brought wine and food and gifts for the God… Needless to say the Priests helped Amun-Ra out a bit and lived like kings and partied like rock stars for the duration of the festival.

Luxor, unlike Karnack, was “reused” in later centuries and the remains of a Muslim temple can be seen at the top of the ruins in the center of the complex. It’s also a very good illustration of how much the ground level has changed over the millenia, both temples, as evidenced by the height of the more recent building at Luxor, were almost completely buried by the shifting sands. Like the Pyramids, there are several theories as to how the temples and their massive walls, columns and statues were built. The most common is that they were built a level at a time, as one level was completed it was filled in with sand and then the next layer was built. After all the layers had been completed they dug out the temple by removing all the sand. No matter how they didn’t, the sheer scale is impressive. The one thing that amazed me the most about all the temples and tombs (except for the Great Pyramids) are the heirogliphic carvings – they’re everywhere! The must have been the ancient Egyptian equivalent of “wallpaper”. Practically every inch of wall and column is solid with them. Not only were they carved, but they were painted after they were carved. Some tell stories, some are just for decoration. There must of been hundreds of people who spent every waking minute of their lives carving and painting. After Luxor we proceeded to Karnack Temple, a huge compound of numerous smaller temples, most dedicated to Amun-Ra or his wife. Several sites within in the temple show up frequently in movies, one of the most famous being an entire room that is filled with huge columns that are shaped like leaves at the top. It’s forest of stone pillars. Throughout Karnack there are thousands of interesting heirogliphics (including some dipicting some rather “over-endowed” male characters). My favorite aspect of this temple was the huge swimming pool! I’m beginning to think the priests had a better life than the Pharoh’s, if not they were a close second. Parties, orgies, free food, their own personal swimming pool, feared and adored by everybody, and none of that defending your throne stuff – not bad.

After our tour of Karnack we returned to the hotel for dinner, complete with an Egyptian Bellydancer who of course made other people in the audience join in. There’s nothing like seeing an elderly gentleman with a fairly wellrounded middle try to belly dance (if only he’d brought his speedos from the ship)… Now that’s entertainment!
Returning to my hotel room I amused myself with CNN, and chasing an unwelcome roommate – a very noisy mosquite. I never did catch her, but she managed to nail me twice!

As we got closer to Luxor and the Nile River Valley towns appeared along the banks of small rivers/canals that we started seeing. It became an intersting drive at that point. My favorite site was the water buffal grazing under the laundry. Arriving in Luxor, on the banks of the Nile we settled into our hotels.

Luxor is an odd mix of luxury hotel barges tied up next to the banks, with dumpy boats rafting to them; luxury hotels fronted by muddy semi-paved roads being used by both cars and horse drawn buggies, and next to half built hotels abandoned for a decade at a time. It seems that in Egypt you get funding to start a hotel, apartment building or office building and you start building usually running out of money 1/2 of the way through. The building stands unfinished until you manage to raise the funds to finish it which can often take anywhere from 10 years to never. This leaves a very odd mix of buildings, some done, some not.

While the hotel that I was at was very nice, what I had hoped was an anomoly in Cairo (the rude Egyptians) wasn’t. The same attitude prevailed here. It was very dissapointing. Rude, brusk manners, absolutely no courtesy or respect to anyone who wasn’t Egytpian, and a complete attitude of “Give us your money and get out.” There is one site in Egypt I haven’t seen yet, Abu Simbel, and I’m not sure I want to see it since I would have to deal with Egyptians again – they were that insulting. To top it off – there were a couple of crusty old British ladies at the dinner buffet at the hotel that cut in front of everybody in line because ‘They had been there for a week and weren’t going to wait because they were special.’

Starting early in the morning the transit took around 12 hours total, because like most Canals it’s one way traffic, so at some point in time the traffic going your direction has to pull over and let the opposing traffic by. We were probably stopped for most of the afternoon at the holding area midway through the passage. There were several very nasty, crabby old ladies on board that amazed me – they were actually angry because the brochure said a “daytime transit” and we didn’t finish the transit until late evening. I guess they expected the Canal officials to stop all ships, and reroute traffic so we could finish our transit by sundown. While one reason I love cruising is meeting people, I could definately do without people like the nasty little old biddies mentioned above.

As far as I’m concerned, Twilight was the best part of the whole transit. We were getting toward the southern part of the Canal and there were some towns along the shores. As the sun went down all the Prayer Towers lit up in neon – it was great! One site that was interesting during the day was the memorial to the War over the Sinai – It was a giant statue of a bayonet.

1) How close Cairo is – the sprawl practically touches the base of the Pyramids and 2) How many people there are crowding the busses trying to sell you something, sell you a camel ride, or just get a hand out. I’m probably one of the few people that will say this – I was a little dissapointed with the Pyramids, they didn’t impress me much. They’re in fairly bad shape, and for the most part are just a pile of strategicly placed stones. They’re also smaller than I thought they’d be – so was the Sphinx.

I was much more impressed with Borobodur on Java and Chickenitza in Mexico (I know they’re not as old…). I was intrigued by the tombs near the Sphinx that they are excavating – now those might be interesting!

We left the Pyramids and went to lunch at a very famous hotel that sits almost next to the Pyramids. Beautiful architecture and great food. After lunch we went to visit a papyrus workshop. There were some beautiful works there – definately the place to pick up a nice gift. The craftsmanship of the drawings is wonderful and the prices are good. After the shopping stop we headed to the Egyptian Museum.

I should note here, our tour guide was a complete JERK! He was insulting to the women, and he hated answering questions. The other Egyptians we ran into in Cairo were just as bad. The attitude seemed to be “Give us your money and get out!” I have never felt more unwelcome in a country. Even the government gets in on it. The policies in the museums regarding cameras is as anti-tourist as you can get. It’s more than double the admission price if you want to bring a still camera, and approximately 10 times the admission price if you want to take a video camera in.

I would strongly suggest that if the Egyptians want to keep making money on the tourists they start treating them a little better. They need to learn how to be nice instead of rude, and conceal their money gouging tactics a little better. The only previous experience I had had with Egyptians was with the wonderful couple I met in Athens, so I had high hopes for Egypt – beautiful antiquity and nice people. Unfortunately the only nice Egyptians I met were the couple in Athens. The last stop was the Mohammed Ali Mosque.