Valley of the Kings; trip of the Plebians

Day 13 (or so, I have lost track) – a bit about Upper Egypt

Eastern Desert - Red Sea Range

Yesterday I filled you in on the pleasures and fascinations of Cairo and Giza. That night we raised anchor late due to the mysteries of Egyptian Officialdom. This was the start of our understandings of Egyptian time keeping. We arrived the next morning an hour later than scheduled at Sofraga. That delay made everything for the whole day go insane apparently.

We docked uneventfully and at that time we were already well up and waiting to be told when we could disembark for our trip to the Valley of the Kings and Luxor. Organization was completely gone and it was chaos from the get go. We all managed to get onto buses and finally set off across the Eastern Desert. This part of the Eastern Desert is very beautiful and rugged with weird and fantastic rock formations and sand everywhere else. This is the part of the desert inhabited by Bedouin. We did learn a bit about them. The Bedouin people are the nomads of the deserts of the Middle East and Africa.  None of them are Egyptian – their origins are Libya, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Bedouin living in Egypt carry Egyptian ID but citizenship is of the other nations. They are tribal and do not marry outside their tribe. They roam the deserts herding their cattle and camels. Women do everything – herd and milk the cattle and camels, bear children, cook and prepare food, prepare fabrics and hides for the tents, build the tents, find water sources, dig the wells by hand and so on and so on. The men sit in the tents and smoke and talk. Their only other role (besides fathering children) is to approve of girls for their sons to marry and to negotiate dowry amounts. Girls are to be married no later than 18 years of age. Once married a couple must live together for 4 years. At that time the wife has the right to choose another wife for her husband. This gives her the right to stop doing all the daily work.  Yes – to all the men reading this who think that sounds fantastic – remember you would have to sit in a black tent in the very nowhereness of nowhere in daytime temperatures exceeding 50˚C and when not doing that, spend the rest of your time walking around the desert and living in one room with several wives, all your children and some goats. At least the first wife gets a break…

Enough about them – We continued trekking across the desert which is in every sense a true desert. Average rainfall in the South is less than an inch. In Luxor it rains in January once every 5 years or so. There is virtually no vegetation of visible life anywhere. Occasionally you see a tamarack tree – this is the indication to the Bedouin of water. They have been known to dig wells at these sites (by HAND) up to 110 metres in depth. That is over 350 feet for anyone counting. Occasionally you will see a few weeds that looked like small Russian thistles at the side of the road. Their green looked almost garish because it came so rarely.

tamarak tree (oasis)

Egyptian transport options

Once we crossed the desert and approached the Nile valley you cross into irrigated farm country and you drive through what is essentially one LONG endless village along the Nile.  At each change in village there is a checkpoint at which you have to slow down or stop. These come as often as every couple of miles and are very annoying and make the trip endless. We passed miles and miles of sugarcane, cotton, onion, potato and tomato fields. The average farm size in Egypt is very small – less than 5 acres at the largest.  They still farm in many cases exactly like they did a thousand years ago. There is a patient donkey and cart at one end and people hand cutting cane and stacking it on the cart. We saw one-bottom donkey drawn plows. The tractors are obviously prized possessions and most were Belarus, made in Russia.  Most would not exceed 100hp. They are, for the most part, brightly decorated with flashing lights, chromed highlights, decorative designs and even brightly embroidered curtains and fringes. 

Every little village has a mosque and minarets and the calls to prayer come 5 times a day. As you get further south in Egypt the people, both Muslim and Coptic Christians, become more devout and observant.

Eventually we arrived at the Valley of the Kings at 12:45, many hours later than planned. There we learned that we would not be allowed to even carry our cameras into the valley. Strictly no pictures allowed and very large fines if caught trying to circumvent this. The Valley contains 63 known tombs and they are still seeking more as they know of Pharaohs that died and were buried somewhere in the region whose tombs have never been located.  We were only allowed to visit 3 tombs and were only there for a little over one hour. The tombs are indescribable. The weird thing is that most of us have seen so many images over the years of Egyptian tomb stuff that when you see the real thing – it looks fake.  It was very hard to comprehend what we were seeing and the age and importance of it all. The colours are amazingly bright and fresh. Apparently 70 years of tourists with sweaty bodies and cameras have done more damage than the previous 2000 years of weather and sand.  They have not restored any paintings or cartouches because they have never been able to successfully reproduce the colours and quality of the plaster used. As near as they can tell it was a complex mixture of pigments, hide glue and some kind of gelatin derived from the lips of cattle and goats. Notably it is VERY hot in the Valley of the Kings. I can not imagine ever being there in the summer and having to work away at carving some tomb for a king.  On the other hand, painting inside one doesn’t seem to be too bad a job. At least you would be out of the sun!



3 Colossi??

 From the Valley of the Kings we made our way past several temple ruins and monuments including the Mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut (famous for killing off 2 husbands and then ruling in her own right while wearing a false beard. She is also the mother of Cleopatra). This temple is high in a hillside due West of the temple of Karnak. It is many stories and all carved into the stone of the mountainside and was used only once for the mummification of the Queen’s body when she died.  We also saw a pair of Colossi (enormous carved figures) which are the last nearly complete ones on earth. Then we made our way into Luxor to the Temple of the Queen’s and then finally to the Temple of Karnak.  Note how I have not said that we stopped at anytime for food – we didn’t. They made a decision that since we were late in arriving we would have to skip lunch so we didn’t miss any sites.  Thankfully they saved Karnak for last. It is truly worth all the pain, exhaustion, heat and effort to see. It is a huge complex built over time by different kings of the New Kingdom (everything in the Luxor region is newer than the pyramids and temples at Giza).  A seemingly endless double row of rams head sphinxes draw you into the temple. Huge walls of pink granite surround the temple proper. The Avenue of the Sphinxes once ran straight for over ½ a mile between the Kings’ and Queens’ temples. The Avenue is no longer complete but remnants remain and additional sphinxes have been moved into the temple.



avenue of Sphinxes, Luxor



temple of Karnak Hall of columns

 Once you enter there is an enormous courtyard which leads to a long east-west oriented corridor or avenue. Everything is oriented this way in ancient Egyptian structures because it all referred to the Sun God and the passage of the sun.  In the temple there is a vast hall filled with huge columns all carved and coloured an lined up in astonishingly straight rows – 132 of them.  Through this stunning hall you follow the avenue to the oldest portions of the temple where the oldest and best preserved obelisks known stand. There are acres of carvings and cartouches and many complete and partially complete statues and figures guarding entrances and guiding souls to varying spots.  We could have spent many hours there but were only granted a mere hour and a half.  All I can say is it was stunning, and magical, and so worth the visit.

guardians of the temple, Karnak

By 6:30pm they finally hauled our very dry, very dusty selves to “lunch” and gave us a whole ½ hour to gobble it. Then it was back on the buses for the long trek back. We were told it would take not more than 3 hours. It took four and a half and all of us were exhausted beyond belief by the time we finally arrived back at the Port – 3 hours later than scheduled. Cunard must have been forewarned because we were greeted at the gangway by a long line of staff with trays of champagne and juice, hot towels to remove the dirt of ages and friendly greetings.  Our usual Head Waiter, Luis was there. Luis gives me the menu for the next day every evening and guards my dining so nothing that I am allergic to gets anywhere near my plate. He worries when I am dining elsewhere because there is no one to check that my food is safe.  He handed me 2 glasses of juice and I gave him a hug. You wouldn’t believe how wonderful a friendly face was after that long a day with Egyptian craziness.

We are glad we were able to see these sites but it is neither easy nor relaxing to do it. This is very much a third world country even though much of the “first” world travels there each year. We did get to ask some questions about the revolution and the aftermath of the changes that Egypt has seen in the past 2 years. We were told that it was good we would not be in the country on the 25^th which is the 2^nd anniversary of the revolution. Many with whom we spoke were preparing to go stand in Tahrir Square once again.

But more about that in another posting.  For now I am going to find my book, gaze out at the Red Sea and lurk so no pirates spot us.