Our alarm went off at 6:30 am and we packed up to meet with our guide, John, for the second part of our Luxor tour - the Valley of the Kings and the Queens. Before we left, our local agent showed up for a few minutes, but left before a mini-bus arrived. Not impressed. So, when the bus showed up, we got on and hoped we had picked the right one. Luckily, we had, and we headed out towards the site with another diverse group of travellers, including a South African, an Australian, a retired couple from Pakistan, and a Dutch couple from Rotterdam. It is never boring travelling!

The tour was good but very hot and our driver hadn't stopped for us to buy water, so the first part of the tour was a little uncomfortable, considering we were climbing up and down hundreds of steps into various tombs! Tut Anhk Amen's tomb was closed, but we visited Ramses III, Thutnes, and a few others. After visiting these sites, we thought the Valley of Queens might be a little anticlimactic, especially after our guide told us it "might be a little anticlimactic"; so instead, we agreed as a group to skip it, and went instead to the site of the town and tombs of the incredible architects, builders, and artists who constructed and decorated the tombs in the Valleys. Ironically, the tombs of these commoners were just as beautiful as the big tombs, because tomb robbers had skipped over them.

After returning to Luxor, we went for a swim in the pool where a very strange man named Abraham (a businessman (taxi and felucca owner) from Aswan on holidays) bothered us a lot. We'd seen him the day before and he was obtrusive, but now he had a "friend" with him who was downright creepy, so they took away a bit of the fun for the kids. It didn't matter too much though, because at 4:00 pm, we were packed up and on a bus for Dahab. Our agent, again, arrived at the last second, rushed us to get there 45 minutes early and then left. The Chilean girls' agent stayed with them and even helped us out at the end, something we appreciated very much. Our agent even had the nerve to ask for money from us after his less than efficient service, so we gave him a tip but it was tiny.

The bus trip was not at all what we'd expected. Several people had said they'd enjoyed the bus more than the train but we have no idea what bus or what train they were talking about. This bus was filthy, with zero leg room, air-conditioning that made a high pitched squeal when it was on and left us absolutely stifling hot when it was off, jam packed, and very, very loud. At sundown, it stopped so the crew could go across the road and pray and eat supper while we all stayed on the bus. That didn't matter so much, except it was a 17 hour bus ride so every single stop was painful and there were many of them - every town, every check point, every speed bump - no wonder it took 17 hours. Barry and I each slept with one of the kids. That, in itself, was brutal as they were constantly contorting themselves into new positions and woke us up repeatedly. At one point, the bus suddenly began to play loud Egyptian music for about an hour, but it was the same song over and over again. During one stop to pick up more passengers, a huge fight took place outside of the bus about space for cargo. We thought someone's luggage would be thrown off and we wanted to make sure it wasn't ours! Needless to say, we were in for a long, long night!