Today started stupid early after an hour or two of sleep we headed to the airport around 215.

We then dropped off the rental car and headed to arrivals. It was a bit of a show moving through all the various steps but we arrived at our gate about an hour early. I dozed but did not really sleep. It was a painful flight due to exhaustion. St one point I looked over at Trapper and I felt so made for booking the flights. She just looked so tired and red eyed and also on red alert. She was totally being a trooper though as a result I felt bad about doing this to her.

We then ran between our flights immigration stations etc. We barely made our Luxor flight. But we did make it. Then we when we landed our baggage did not come out. Luckily someone directed us to the other baggage carousels. Apparently because we started the day flying from outside the country our bags needed to clear customs in Luxor despite us clearing customs in Cairo.

Anyway we then went out and found medhat our guide to southern Egypt. He has turned out to be a real gem.

He ushered us into a van where we met our travel compatriots a twenty something couple of Australians. We then drove to Karnak.

Karnak was amazing it is huge. the fact that the paint is still on some of the panels is amazing. And the size of each individual thing is also very cool.

However Karnak was very hot. Trapper is used to doing her trap lines in the snow so she was extremely affected by the heat. We had to enlist a local voodoo priest that is a part time soccer coach/trainer that just happened to be there that day to work his magic. He poured water on her gave her a weird massage and kept pressing his thumb to her forehead. All under our helpful guide medhat and my eyes. When trapper was ready to go again I finished off my looking around Karnak and we went back to the mini bus to enjoy an air conditioned ride to our next location.

Next we went to the valley of the kings. We went to the tombs of Ramses 3, 9, and I have no idea. All were recommended by medhat. They were very good and had way more paint on all the walls then the temples. The valley of the kings was very hot. Two of the tombs were not to hard to get in and out of one of them made a right and then a left that medhat was very impressed by that was one of the Ramses. Another I went up a number of stairs to get too then I went down a long way in the tomb looking at the art all the way. It was a long hot climb out but it was definitely worth it. It had a huge stone sarcophagus at the bottom like the depth must have been ten feet. I found out that the pharaohs were made into Russian dolls in their coffins with many layers of coffins of metals gold wood stone. So the outer coffins had to be huge to contain all the smaller ones.

After that we went for a big lunch. I noticed that Egypt tends to have a whole bunch of different sized grains of rice mixed together to make any single rice dish.

After that we took in the collasi of memnon. They are several huge statues.

Then on to the alabaster factory where they showed us how they make alabaster vases and what not and to the obligatory shop. I actually bought a nice piece of art that medhat helped me negotiate down to $40 from $210. I must say I hate bargaining for everything at rates that are inflated that much.

Then we went off and took in the temple of hahtatetchute. It was huge and well preserved but by this point even I was starting to be significantly worn by the heat. It was 56 degrees Celsius there while we were there. My theory is it’s hot in Egypt but all the stone in the valley being heated each day by the sun turns the valley into an oven. It literally felt like the fish of hot steam that sometimes rushes out of the oven when your cooking. It literally hurt my skin to stay in that valley.

Slightly earlier in the day medhat had suggested we change our plan and join a boat down the Nile instead of hotels. He thought it would’ve better re ac travel and everything is available right there. So we agreed and are currently traveling down the Nile on the Royal Ruby. An aptly named boat for us.

We then will get off after two days and take a bus back to Luxor to catch a flight. The whole time checking out sights off the boat. All the same sights just a little slower paced on the boat. Oh we did lose a site or two but not the ones I was interested in.