After leaving Aqaba, we sailed back out of the Gulf of Aqaba and south into the Red Sea. The waters have been smooth as glass. A little way down, on the western side is Safaga (SOF-a-guh), which is a small, unimproved port town but is the closest port to Luxor and the many famous sites near Luxor. And yes, without even being told, I could tell we were back in Egypt -- rubbish everywhere, strewn around and piled up and choking waterways. It was a stark contrast to Jordan where even in Petra there were men sweeping dirt paths to pick up trash.
Our tour started at 6:30 AM, which meant that we had to be in the buffet for breakfast by 5:30 AM in order to eat and allow some time for our bodies to function before leaving the ship. I must say that although I am a fan of Abba and Jimmy Buffet, it is a little jarring to hear Dancing Queen and Fins to the Left at 5:30 in the morning while eating one’s Cherrios. Oh well, they say that traveling is full of the unexpected.
Once again we boarded busses for a 14 hour tour, about 18 busses divided into 2 convoys, and as my sister and I boarded bus number 4 we saw the same guide that we had in Alexandria. So we both hailed him and yelled out “habiby” (ha-BEE-bee), which means friend in Arabic (it can also mean darling if said while gazing in your lover’s eyes). We had a nice little reunion.
On this tour, the Egyptian government and the tour company was especially careful of security because the tour was scheduled to drive on some brand new highways that go through very deserted areas (no pun intended), so we had a police escort at the front of each of the two convoys and a plain-clothes policeman in each bus (who did nothing but sleep, but then again nothing bad happened so we didn’t need his services).
The terrain looked exactly like I expected -- much like the desert terrain you see in the movie Lawrence of Arabia. Lots of flat land and small hills and large hills, all sand and covered with loose stones (must be murder to walk on) as far as you can see. Some wind-sculpted sand dunes, some rocky outcroppings here and there. In a shallow valley, we saw a large herd of camels walking but didn’t see any person with them -- I doubt they were really wild, however. Occasionally, in the middle of nothing, we saw a tent or a small square cement brick hut where a family was living -- how they survive I don’t know. Every now and then we had to slow down for a police checkpoint -- we never had to stop. The drive to Luxor took about 3.5 hours each way.
As we approached Luxor, the terrain turned agricultural, mostly sugar cane, alfalfa for the animals, and wheat (they were harvesting their winter wheat crop). Clearly there is plenty of water here because almost all the land was farmed -- each field is fairly small compared to what I am used to seeing in the United States. Donkeys pulling carts piled with alfalfa and sugar cane, women (in traditional, modest garb but not the full burkha) and men (also in traditional robes) in the field harvesting. Often saw a donkey tied up to a tree in the shade on the bank of a canal.
When we hit town, once again there were busses and cars and little tuk tuks (kind of a motorcycle with a cab in the back), and donkey carts all vying for the same space in the street. Looked like chaos but they all seem to know how to steer their way through. Always men sitting outside small, grubby shops, only occasionally a woman walking down the street (saw very, very few women). Many unfinished cement buildings and mud brick buildings, lots of piles of rubble, almost no painted buildings. As my sister said, it probably looks just like in biblical times if you subtract the motorized vehicles, the electrical lines, and the rebar.
Our first stop was a quick out-of-the-bus, back-in-the-bus at the Colossus of Memnon, which is really two enormous sitting statues (and I am comparing them to lots of other really big Egyptian statues and these are really, really big). Look them up on Google. A person standing next to one is truly dwarfed. Of course, this being Egypt, we were set upon by souvenir sellers. I must say that it is unfortunate that I couldn’t even take a careful look at any of the items. The minute my eyes moved to an item, or I even looked like I might be walking towards a stall, I was surrounded by men and boys holding things in front of my face and trying to get my attention. Lots of “1 dollar, 1 dollar” occasionally punctuated by a clever switch up of “1 million dollars, 1 million dollars” or even “no thank you, no thank you,” which still didn’t put me in a buying mood. I did see some pretty alabaster things in my peripheral vision (you get good at seeing things out of the corner of your eye) but do I really need to be carting home alabaster vases? Don’t think so.
And on to the Valley of the Kings. In the rocky mountains on the outskirts of Luxor, there is the Valley of the Kings (that’s the most famous), the Valley of the Queens, the Valley of the Nobles, and the Valley of the Workers (our guide showed us some amazing photos of paintings in tombs of wealthy farmers -- who knew?), all filled with ancient tombs that have been discovered. The prevailing thought is that there are many more undiscovered ones. We only had time for one valley.
The good news is that it was a dream-fulfilling experience -- I actually got to go there and see it and even go into a tomb. The bad news is that the Egyptian tourist police do not allow any cameras into the valley at all. They screened us and our hand bags to make sure. So all I can do is try to describe it.
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