Egypt
Marseille, France. 7th Arrondissement
March 23rd, 2025
Well there is no use apologizing for not having written in awhile it is obviously how I roll. So I will just continue with my writing as I can.
Since Thailand I have spent a week in Egypt visiting the sites that I have always wanted to. The lesson here is that everyone else wants to visit them too and an enormous trade is made from these ancient monuments. I flew to Cairo and then flew to Luxor the next day. Unfortunately, I did not take the overnight train. I heard mixed reviews about the train and it was overnight. Since I only had week I took the easier cheaper way and flew to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.
I stayed in a wonderful place a 10 minute walk from the ferry to Luxor’s East Bank. From the roof top of my hotel I could see the ancient temple of Luxor and the Nile. To the west I could see the Valley of the Queens. As I learned ages ago Egypt is the Nile. Everything green flows from it. As soon as one passes beyond the reach of the river it becomes an impassable desert. I had the “professor’s villa” part of the hotel complex. I had my own courtyard bathroom and bedroom with a little kitchen. It was comfortable and cool inside the stone bedroom. Outside, even though it was winter it got pretty warm during the day. My “Villa” was a garden of flowering plants and palms. At night I could light the pathway to the courtyard and sit and look a the moon as it transited the sky as it always has. I thought of the ancients who witnessed the same moon 5000 years ago when they established Egypt and the culture that we only see glimpse of today.
As I am prone to do I rented a really uncomfortable mountain bike. I was able to take it everywhere in Luxor. When I made it up the long, steep approach to the Valley of the Kings some people getting out of one of the myriad tour buses clapped for me as I got to the parking lot. This is the beauty of bicycles. There is never a problem parking them close to where you want to go. The Valley of the Kings is, quite frankly, a disgrace. It is simply hoards of people trying to get into the tombs of the Pharaohs they heard about in school. I found it really disturbing that this graveyard was turned into a scene of just “been there done that” type of mentality. I understand the Egyptian government must do what it does with it’s antiquities but I just got a bad feeling about it. I wandered up into the valley looking for a path away from the crowds. I have become pretty good at this. I was rewarded with a path leading to the tomb of Thutmose IV. A guard took me, alone, into the tomb. We descended into the sandstone cliff tunnel. At a certain level beautiful Hieroglyphs began to appear. As he and I continued we came into the burial chamber where the sarcophagus lay. It was enormous and cut from an entirely different stone than the surrounding rock. I still can not see a way that the coffin could have fit into the tomb. The guard said, you tourists just want to get in and get out, why don’t you just sit for a moment. He was right. I always just want to keep on moving. I listened to him and sat. Got my tripod out and got some Wonderfull photos that I would not have gotten had I not listened to him. We left the tomb just as other visitors arrived. I left the valley of the kings without seeing more. The lines were ridiculous and I didn’t want any part of it.
The next day was far better and closer to home. I headed to the Valley of the Queens passing by the Colossi of Memnon. I went up the hill towards the cliffs above. The reach of the Nile ended and I was in the desert. I followed the road up into the light brown mountainside until it ended in a parking lot. I locked up the bike with the old lock and chain the bike shop had stuck on. I climbed up path leading to what were some walled ruins. These walls turned out to be the homes of the workers who built the underground tombs of the Pharaohs. I climbed further only to find out that the ticket machine wasn’t working. I had to descend down the road to buy tickets. Back in the saddle I reascended, hot and already beat up. It was worth it. The tombs that were opened were the tombs of the overseers of the tomb builders. These must have been the chief artisans or perhaps the architects of the tombs. This land had been granted to them and from what I gathered it was their special privilege to be able to build their own eternal monuments in close approximation to those built down the road. The hieroglyphics were extraordinary. They were almost as good as those found in the regal tombs a few kilometers away. I imagine that these must have been carved on their days off.
On leaving the tombs I met up with an experience that put a damper on the day. A guy came up to me and wanted to talk about the ruins. I told him I did not want a guide. He assured me he wasn’t a guide and just wanted to help show m around. He showed me a few things of interest. One was a mound of broken pottery that he claimed was from water carriers and food containers left by the workers thousands of years ago. Nearby was a pit dug by hand that was so deep I cold not see to the bottom. According to my new friend it was a well that was dug so the workers did not have to get water from the distant Nile. After this he showed me the head of somebody that was thrown into a pit along the route back to the exit. I knew it was fake but still it was eerie. Right after this he started to make his move and tried to sell me a bunch of trinkets he was selling for a friend. I told him I was uninterested and was not going to buy anything. He told me of how hard his life was and of all his children. I finally had to ask him to leave me alone. He eventually left only to find me a little later as I was walking out of the ruins. He handed me a little trinket and just asked for the equivalent of $5. I was angry now. I had told him I wasn’t in need of a guide, that I did not want to buy anything and he still wouldn’t leave me alone. Finally, I handed him back the trinket and give him his $5 which was payment to simply leave me alone. I left with just a rotten feeling of the place. Despite how interesting it all was, everything had a cost to be a foreigner in the land of Egypt.
My distaste for the constant badgering is pointless. It is how it is and probably always has been. When I travelled as a kid this didn’t happen much. They knew I was a kid and didn’t have money. Now it’s different. They see a single traveler and the assumption, rightly or wrongly, that they have money. I understand that this is how they make what little money the make. I’ve been around too long. It bothers me.
After a noisy last night in Cairo I was looking forward to going home. For the first time in my travels I switched hotels late at night. The place I was at was just too loud. I didn’t know about the horn blowing in Cairo. It is a strange phenomenon but every car beeps its horn on a repetitive basis. Because there is so much traffic and little structure to the streets and circulation cars are in constant jeopardy of accidents. It seems to work but only at the sacrifice of peace and quiet. It is often impossible to cross the street. I tried to sleep, used earplugs which usually solves the problem but nothing worked. I found another hotel close by and made sure it was noted for being quiet and left. Finding one’s hotel in Cairo is not easy. The Booking. Com map was useless as was the google map. The tricks is to get close and ask around.. This usually works. One time it didn’t in Morocco so I just moved on.
I’m on a transatlantic flight home via Iceland. Lots of small children. I don’t seem to have the tolerance for loud rambunctious children anymore. I’m wondering if my next travel should be closer to home or at least in this hemisphere.
