A Rest Day - Plutonian Style

Egypt

What to do on a hot rest day in a place like Luxor? Take a cruise on the Nile. Take a tour to the temples and tombs. Sit and read in the shade. Eat, drink, sleep. There are many options. But how about some running around?

I did not want to go on the bus tour to the West bank. I wanted to go on my own, at my pace enjoying things my way. I have filled up some 20 diary pages on this, but here's the summary:

6:20am get up
6:47 am leave camp
7:05 am get on a boat to cross the Nile
7:20 am stop for breakfast on a rooftop restaurant with view over the Nile and the village
8:07 am start walking towards the archeological sites stopping in many local shops to buy chocolate and cheese and something to drink and oranges. In my rush I had not taken anything with me
6:45pm stop walking
7:00pm take ferry back to East bank
7:20pm stop and finally eat!
8:45pm return to camp, shower and write last postcards before falling asleep

The walking covered some 20+km and included also a hike over a hill and a short section of scrambling.

After breakfast I walked on the main road towards the ticket office. There were only some 3km to get there, very little traffic and too beautiful of a scenery to miss it. A car stopped to give me a ride " No money, please, come" but I resisted the persuasive invitations and kept walking. The light was beautiful, the air was humid and the haze gave the whole scenery a touch of magic. The street sweepers were at work dressed in orange. I felt happy saying hello to each one of them and getting a hello back every time. You see, I was dressed in orange, too, head to toe. I could stop any time to watch and take pictures of the men at work in the fields, of the patient donkeys and the little carts.
The little village at the end of the road where the ticket office was was extremely picturesque. The small square houses on the hillside painted in several colours with the brown hill in the background and the blue sky above looked just like a pastell. I took pictures in a frenzy.

Next I went to see the Temple of Habu. But, as usual, I took the detour route and only got to see some more details of the village life like the children playing soccer nearby the archeological trenches.

The Temple of Habu was very impressive with its huge stone columns and the huge Ramses statues. Pepe was kind enough to serve as a reference: he was just big enough to cover a toe nail of a statue. Some of the antique wall paintings were so well preserved you could think they had been painted recently. And those lovely Nubian colours: blue and yellow and red...

I spent a couple of hours here until I decided to move on. There was so much to see.
Next I visited some of the Tombs of the Nobles which had absolutely amazing paintings and were not busy with visitors. I can't describe the feeling I had seeing those, neither can I describe the beauty of some of those paintings. There is so much detail and perfection in those paintings!

The Temple of Hatshepsut is carved into the rocky hillside. Beautiful red rock, dramatic setting, impressive art. Magnificent altogether. What can I say really? I just stared in awe at things and took pictures like every other tourist.

From here I chose to hike over the hill to get to the Valley of the Kings on the other side. And so I did, discovering the gorgeous scenery on the other side and beyond. An Egyptian Canyonland dotted with archeological treasures. Sweeping views over the sites and the ridges in the distances as well as the plantations to the East along the Nile.

I could see the site below me and some trails but I was on the rim of the Valley of the Kings with a huge drop down beneath. Looking for a way down I found a very narrow gully I figured I might be able to scramble down. However, after scrambling down for about 10-12 meters I got to a spot I did not see from above. A big drop. Maybe another 6-8 meters or so. Not so good hand and footholds any more. More exposure, no protection. Do I want to end the trip here? Would anybody find me here? Not too soon, for sure.
I turned around and scrambled back up. Eventually, I followed the right trail and got down into the valley. It was late afternoon and the mountains were glowing orange.
Having no ticket I had to run down the road and then back up bitching about this stupid system of selling tickets in different spots and never close to the site nor in a centralized fashion. Just to make you pay more.
I managed to visit 3 tombs going deep down into the bowels of the mountain. What an effort, what a faith! To dig all this out; to paint and carve it; to fill it up with treasures so a rich king could continue his wasteful life after death. What a luck for us! What an enormous heritage and treasure for us who have invented the "disposable" good and spread it out throughout the world. There were piles and piles of disposable garbage dumped in the gullies above Hatshepsut's Temple. Our modern contribution to the area :-(

I've got not one but many - maybe half a dozen - offers for a ride "back to town" or the ferry. "For no money, please!"
First it was a young handsome man on his motorbike that I turned down. "Thank you, but I really love to walk." Then, as I was walking down the road in this fantastic canyon scenery the others stopped at different times pleading me to go for no money. Nope, I'll walk. Thank you very much.

What the map did not show exactly was the distance. Maybe 6km or more. An hour and a half later I was still walking and nowhere close the ticket office. It was getting dark and then it got really dark. How I wished someone stopped for me. But - godly revenge - nobody did.
And so I walked for the next few kilometers and another hour and turned down many invitations from women and children to go inside their homes for a tea. I could not afford that. I had to get back to the ferry and on the other side of the Nile tonight.
The sunset was spectacular though and the scenery lovely. Never mind my blisters and hunger. I had 1kg of oranges in my pack, cheese and chocolate but did not stop to eat.

It was somewhere between km 1 and 2 away from the ferry when a taxi came and picked me up. The driver had seen me walking while driving the other way and had returned. By now I didn't want to take the cab anymore. I was almost there. But he insisted. And so I met Shakespeare, the English teacher driving a cab in his spare time. He started our short ride by reciting a whole collection of verses from Shakespeare. We chatted a bit and laughed and then I was back to the Nile and hopped on the ferry.
Finally on the other side I stopped and had a big dinner at one of the restaurants on the corniche, right next to the Nile.

When I got back to camp I was feeeling happy, excited and - I have to admit - a bit tired. My feet were hurting. I had taken more then 600 pictures and had laughed a lot and chatted with the locals.
I had been Cleopatra for a while in the company of Mohammed - a local boy - who wanted to be the king. "Nope", I said. "If I am Cleopatra as you say, then you are my slave. That's how I want it." He didn't like that. "Am I so ugly?" he asked offended. And I had to give in and accept him being the king. It was only for the day anyway.