Fellucas, Donkeys and the Valley of the Kings

Our felluca day started off at 10:00 when we were to all meet in the lobby of the hotel with our bags to transfer on to our boat.  We had a short 5 minute bus ride to the dock.  Our felluca's were there already and waiting for us.  The felluca is an ancient Egyptian sail boat which has been in use since they built the pyramids.  The rock for the pyramids were transported by felluca's and they were the main way of travel for thousands  of years.  We weren't sure what to expect.  I had a vision of some rickety wooden vessel barely sea worthy but they felt like the lap of luxury.

the gang on the boat deck

The other half of our group on their felucca

 The entire deck of the boat was covered in a big cozy mattress and pillows for us to lounge on.  Our trip on our sail boat was all day and then we were sleeping on it at night.  The felluca itself does not have any thing on it, like bathrooms, or showers or a kitchen but we had a support boat that sailed down the Nile with us that had all the comforts we needed.  It was also where we ate all our meals.  The weather here has been perfect. Not a cloud in the sky and a gorgeous 32 degrees celcius, no humidity.  I will tell you that we have never been so relaxed in our life as we were sailing down the Nile.  We had lunch at 1:00 then around 2:00 they pulled the boats ashore so we could go swimming in the River.  We are just outside Aswan which is south of Cairo by about 800 kms.  There is a huge dam here in Aswan so the Nile water is very clean and clear here.  I would not step even a toe in the water near Cairo but here it was perfect.  Only a few of us braved it but some people just couldn't do it.  I am just so thrilled to be over my fear of water I just had to jump in.  The current is really strong so we stuck very close to shore and were only in for a few minutes.  Back on the boat for wine and getting to know the people on our boat.  We had to have 2 boats because you can't sleep more that 8 people on one and there are 15 of us. There seems to be a natural separation in our group, the young guys, 20-25 year old then then us, 31-62 years old.  The young people are actually quite mature and fun to be around but we seem to have more in common with the other people.
After dinner we sat on the support boat for quite a long time drinking wine and chatting then all of a sudden it started getting chilly so we decided to go to bed.  Our tour guide came to our boat and gave us blankets and we started getting settled for the night. It felt like one big ridiculous slumber party for old people, we had a huge giggling fit about it at one point because we have only known each other for 6 days and we are already sharing a room...all 7 of us!  It didn't take long to fall asleep and we had an early morning anyway so just as well we went to bed early.  Here are a few pictures of the felluca ride...

Camels lounging on the side of the Nile of course

The support boat where we ate, drank and showered

Nile Sunset

The next morning we had to catch a bus to get to Luxor.  On the way we stopped at Edfu temple which is the second largest Egyptian temple they have discovered.

Edfu

This is just one of hundreds of drawings at Edfu

 The art work speaks for itself.  This is the second largest temple in Egypt.  But not before we went swimming in the Nile...

We still had a bit of a drive to get to Luxor but when we arrived at our hotel we found a little oasis by the Nile.  We arrived around 1 in the afternoon and we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted.  For Joe and I it looked like sitting on the roof top pool deck, drinking beer under the hot sun, going for a swim then watching the sun set. 

the view from our rooftop balcony.

The next morning we were all excited as it was Donkey Day and Valley of the Kings.  I had this idea in my head that we would be riding the donkeys into the valley but no no, I was wrong.  We actually rode the donkeys through the town, in between traffic, crazy drivers, random people that step out into the street and other donkey drivers pulling carts.  Well let me tell you from the second we saw the donkeys we started to laugh.  Just like with the camels, as soon as Joe stepped up to go near his animal, the donkey showed it's scary teeth, stomped and brayed like crazy.  I howled!  I was so happy when they gave me Casper, the friendly donkey, who didn't really have much drive left in him.  He was just happy to take his time through the ridiculous traffic.  I actually felt like I knew what I was doing!  Joe galloped most of the way and got to the meeting place well ahead of most of the rest of us.  I bet you didn't think of him as a cowboy did ya?!

Ali baba and Joe

Casper and I

We had a short bus ride to the Valley of the Kings which really was one of the things I was most looking forward to on this whole trip.  I would like to be able to say we took thousands of pictures but sadly, we weren't even allowed to bring our cameras off the bus.  The reason for this is very simple.  Everytime someone takes a picture it destroys the colours of the paintings in the tombs.  They have lost brilliance over the years so now they are really trying hard to protect them.  In the valley, they have discovered 62 tombs but they know for a fact that there are still more because they found King Ramses 1,2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 9 but not 8.  There is no reason why his tomb wouldn't be there so they are still excavating.  I do have a picture of that (at Edfu actually) but it is all done the same way...by hand, no tools other than hammers and chisels.

Our ticket allowed us to go into 3 tombs but we had to pay an extra 100 Egyptian pounds each to see King Tut.  (that works out to be about $18 btw)
We went to see Ramses 2, Ramses 9, and King Thutmoses 3
Kings Ramses 2&9 were quite incredible (and I suggest google images if you want to see what we saw) but King Thutmoses' tomb was unbelievable.  His tomb was about 85 steps up a mountain then around 110 steps down inside the moutain.  There were carvings and drawings on all the walls and ceilings on th way down.  The pictures were still extraordinarily brilliant because there is no way you can get natural light down that far.  But the most amazing thing was his tomb is still down in there.  A solid granite tomb complete with lid (the mummy is in the Egyptian museum for safe keeping).  Some might say "Big deal, it is a tomb after all" but the amazing part is the tomb is bigger than the opening into the grave.  They have no idea how they got the solid granite tomb into the mountain.  I had to crouch in 2 places to get down the steps so you can imagine how tight the space is!  I just wish I could show you pictures. 

I have so many pictures that I could load them all night, unfortunately I have a slow connection and this post has literally taken a couple of hours to get pictures to load.  I will have more when we get to a better connection hopefully.  Next stop, back to Cairo to go to the largest market in Egypt then to St Catherine's Temple and Mount Sinai.  I am positive that I am still dreaming this whole thing up!