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Kya Travels
We got our wake up call at 5am this morning, then I went down for a breakfast omelette, while Darren opted to get a shower instead of breakfast, then we met up in the lobby at 6. We had to walk through about 6 or 7 cruise ships to get to the dock, as they were all lined up next to each other and ours was on the end. They were all empty too, apart from a few security guards sleeping on the floor. It's crazy that there used to be so many cruise ships on the Nile, but now the tourism in Egypt has pretty much disappeared due to the riots of July, and (mostly) the media, so there are so many Egyptians out of work. It's pretty sad, I hope it picks up for them again soon! We got to the dock, then went up to the van where we met our Egyptologist and tour guide for the day, Sam, and drove to the Valley of the Kings. Sam talked to us for the entire 45 minute drive, giving us lots of history and information about the valley and the ancient Egyptian gods. When we arrived, we left our cameras on the bus, as there are absolutely no photos allowed in the valley. Apparently the guards will leave you alone while you're in there, but then can take your phone or camera and go through the photos in it, and will charge you 50 Egyptian pounds per photo, as well as deleting the photos! And if you can't pay they won't give you back your camera or phone! So we decided on no sneaky photos today! Sam took us through and gave us our tickets, which lets you visit three tombs, and we bought some extra tickets too, one for Rameses IV tomb, which is the most well preserved, and the others bought one for Tutankhamen's tomb, which we didn't because it was expensive, and the only thing in the tomb, although its very cool, is Tutankhamen's mummy, and we'd already seen heaps of mummies in the Egyptian Museum. So we decided to save some money there. We walked into the valley, and made the 5 minute walk into the part where all the tombs were. The Valley of the Kings is where in the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasty of ancient Egypt, all the kings were buried, as there was a natural pyramid shaped mountain, and they were looking to hide their tombs from grave robbers. Tour guides are forbidden to talk inside the tombs, so we sat outside the first tomb, which belonged to King Rameses IV, where Sam gave us some more information, and showed us some pictures of things to look out for inside the tomb, then we went inside. We wandered along looking at all the amazing drawings and carvings in the walls, which still had such amazing colours present. We walked to the end of the tomb where there was a giant stone block that used to contain the mummy, which had been cracked open by grave robbers. Apparently his mummy, along with many others in the valley, were found all together in a different tomb, as the priests tried to hide the mummies from grave robbers after their tombs were opened. When we were looking at the broken sarcophagus, the guard came down and opened a rope to let us into another section, then got us all to close our eyes and lean our heads against the giant broken stone for good luck! That was kind of weird, but he was just looking for a bit of extra cash, so we tipped him and started to make our way out again. He asked Darren if he wanted to take a photo, for some more money, which we thought about, but decided against, because there were heaps of other guards around the place who could check, charge and delete our photos at any time! When we finished looking around in there we headed out and met up with Sam again, who told us a bit about the next tomb, which was a combined tomb for Rameses V and Rameses VI. Both of them were only Pharaoh for a short amount of time, and Rameses VI had some dispute with Rameses V and didn't think he should have been king, so after his death, Rameses VI ordered his tomb to be opened (which was never done!), his mummy to be moved to another tomb, had his name replaced all through the carvings and pictures, and extended the tomb even further to be his own tomb! Greedy! When we'd finished walking through that one, the others went into Tutankhamen's tomb and we went into Rameses IX. We were followed (like in all of them) by the guard, who kept pointing at different scenes on the walls and telling us about them, but this guy was just making up random things, which we had already been told about by Sam, then tried to get us to pay him for the information! So cheeky! The others joined us in there after a bit and then Darren went to go to the toilet, and I sat down outside while we waited for them to finish looking in that one, then we headed to our last tomb for the day, Rameses III. We tried a different technique to try not get hassled by the guards and walked in two groups, so Sophie and I walked behind the others a bit. But the guard chose to hassle us! He could see Sophie's phone in her pocket, so asked her to show it to him, and show him the photos, to see if she'd taken any! He went through the photos, (which didn't have any of course), then kept hassling her, asking over and over if she'd taken any photos, then started to walk off with the phone, saying to follow him! She stood her ground though, and didn't follow until she had the phone back in her hands, as she'd done nothing wrong, and eventually he gave it back. We think he might have been trying to take a photo for her, then charge her for it! So dodgy! And extremely annoying. We walked past a part where they had started to dig, then dug right into another tomb, then the tomb sidetracked around before going further down. We walked down to where the others were at the end of the tomb, which was completely ruined and looked almost more like a cave than a tunnel, as water had gotten into this cave, and as it just kept going down, this part took all the damage, while the section closer to the entrance was still pretty well preserved. Crazy the difference a bit of water can make! Darren met back up with us around here, so I walked slowly back with him after the others had finished looking. As we were coming up though, Sam was yelling out to us to hurry up, so we were rushed out of there, which was annoying. As we walked out, there was a huge group of Asian tourists all with their massive SLR's taking ten million photos! That didn't seem fair... So we snuck a few cheeky photos of the valley itself, before getting on a little carriage and got driven back to the entrance of the valley. We forced our way through a very pushy market and got back in the van, and drove around to the other side of the valley, where we went to Hatshepsut's Temple. As we were walking up the stairs to the ruins of the temple, a group of around 50 school kids went past us the other way, and they were all so excited to see us! They started screaming excitedly as kids do, and telling us they loved us, and Darren got at least 2 million high fives! Crazy! When we got up to the temple we walked through the ruins with Sam, who told us the story of King Hatshepsut, who was actually a woman. Her very young nephew was supposed to be king, so she sent him off to study religion, then told people she was not a queen, but she was a king, because her father was the god Amon-Ra. And they believed her for some reason... Then when she died, the nephew became king again, and ordered her temple to be destroyed and her image and name to be erased throughout it. So all around the carved walls, there were cartouches (how the kings and gods names are written) that were scratched out, and entire images removed as well. But you could still tell it was her temple, because they couldn't remove it all, or they would be removing the parts that referred to Gods, and that wasn't allowed. After wandering through there, past the huge sculptures of Hatshepsut (which wasn't really her anymore, as the cartouches were destroyed) we headed back down to the van past a group of Egyptian girls who yelled out to us to tell us "Egypt loves you!" then got through the markets and got back in the van. We drove back over the Nile to the east side (all the tombs are in the west, because the sun sets on that side, so it is for the dead) and made our way to Karnak temple, which is (I think...) the largest temple in Egypt. It was ridiculously hot by this stage, but we walked around in the sun anyway, getting shown around by Sam. By this stage of the day, we had gotten a ridiculous amount of information, so I couldn't take much more in, so we just followed him around, and marveled at the immensity of the ancient ruins, and imagined how amazing it would have been back in the day. Sam showed us how to read some of the cartouches, and how depending which way the hieroglyphs were facing would tell you which way to read them. If they face to the left you read from the left, if they face right you read from the right, and always from top to bottom. We wandered around the ruins of the ancient temple, through giant pillars, obelisks, massive sphinxes and all sorts of cool looking things. We were pretty wrecked by the time Sam finished his tour so we wandered slowly back to the entrance, taking some photos along the way. As we walked out there was a poor dog lying in a tiny bit of shade who looked like it was almost dead! It had an infected eye too the poor thing. We gave it some water, but there was nothing we could leave it in for him, so we had to just pour it into the street for him. Hope he's okay! We made our way back through the sellers and back to the van, then started to drive out to an optional stop, the Luxor temple. Sam gave us some information about it on the drive, but for sights it was quite similar to the last one (but not as big), so only Sophie and Nikki ended up going in, and the rest of us went to get some traditional Egyptian food across the road, McDonalds. We got our meals and got a seat by the window to eat. We had ordered a large meal each, and it wasn't just large, it was American large! It was about twice the size of large meals at home, it was totally ridiculous. There was a kid on the street outside who kept motioning through the window to us, asking for food, so we saved the rest of our chips and Darren's coke that we didn't want and when we headed back out to the van we gave it to him. He was so excited to get it, it was kind of cute. We don't think he was starving or anything because he looked pretty healthy, but maybe they just couldn't afford to eat maccas, so it was like a special treat for him! He kept waving at us as we drove away, so we waved back then started making our way back to the ship. We walked back through all the other ships to ours and headed straight to our room for a quick half hour snooze. We were wrecked! Then we had to pack our bags and meet at the lobby at 3 to check out. We payed our drinks bill which wasn't quite as bad as we were expecting, then went and chilled in the bar with the others while we waited for an hour and a half until it was time to leave. Wish we could have just stayed in bed! When it was time we payed for the drinks we had just had, then left the ship. We got back in the van, and went to find an ATM before starting the journey back to Cairo. But all the ATMs we tried weren't working!! We ended up doing a bit of an ATM tour of Luxor, then finally we found one that worked. Sophie went first, and when she asked for 2000 Egyptian pounds, the machine only gave her 150! So we didn't use that! We decided to give up on ATMs for the day and just to wait for later! So we got back in the van and started the long ridiculously bumpy and uncomfortable drive. After about 4 or 5 hours we stopped for dinner at a little town with a shopping complex. We found a Mexican restaurant, and sat down to order. Then we found the wifi! We had gone without wifi for a whole 4 days or something, so everyone was glued to their phones! Mine wast picking it up, so I just sat there and hung out with myself and a table full of zombies! We got some yummy dinner and were joined by George, another tour guide who would be continuing on with the rest of the group to Dahab after Cairo. He was a pretty nice guy. After dinner and a chat we headed out and got back in the stupid bus. After trying and failing to sleep for another couple of hours or so, there was a rest stop. We got off and stretched our cramped legs, then I got back on while Darren stayed outside for a bit. Apparently while he was out there he watched some guys trying to get a camel off a trailer who didn't want to move, so they actually pushed it right off and it landed on its side! Apparently it was screaming something shocking too, the poor thing! So cruel! We left not long later, and I got maybe an hour of sleep, and Darren got nothing.
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