Egypt Day 11: Good Tour Guide, No Alabaster Factory

We awoke at 6 AM to the ring of the phone. We had to be up and out the door by 7 AM for the hour-long bus ride to Luxor. We had unwittingly chosen to cruise the Nile one of the four weeks a year the Esna locks are closed for cleaning, preventing us from riding the boat all the way to Luxor, so we were instead stuck with the unenviable prospect of three extra bus trips - two for the sightseeing trip on today's schedule and one tomorrow morning when we departed. The entire Spanish contingent was also on our bus, making for a crowded ride.

The bus ride was uneventful (we both caught some extra shut-eye along the way) and we arrived in Luxor's West Bank area (*not* the other West Bank you hear about more frequently) at around 8 AM. Our first stop was the Colossi of Memnon, the only remnants of a once-great funerary temple complex. They were, as one might expect, enormous but even more impressive was that one of the statues was carved from a single piece of granite quarried somewhere in the Aswan area! IT's apparently unknown how the architects then transported the finished work.

We then de-bused and boarded a second, smaller bus for the day's excursion - the Spanish contingent had their own separate ride. We also met our new guide for the day, Medhat. Medhat was everything our first guide wasn't - knowledgable, funny and almost completely un-annoying. We would learn much about Medhat over the course of the day, including that he had a masters degree in Egyptology and was recently engaged (his fourth wife, it seems). Still, his commentary went far beyond the usual patter and was quite welcome throughout the day.

Next stop was the Valley of the Queens, so named because the initial excavations found only tombs of women. Later tombs of several princes (the sons of the queens) were found, but the Valley of the Queens and Princes doesn't fit well on a T-shirt so the old name stuck. We visited two tombs in the valley. Nefertari's tomb was closed for renovation, but apparently is the most beautiful of any in Egypt - admission runs 100 pounds when it's open, and some fellow travelers told us their tour guide said they could visit the tomb now for the paltry sum of 20,000 pounds - each. Oh, and they'd have to have a quick chat with the U.S. Ambassador.

The first tomb was that of Amunherkhepshef, the 10 year old son of Ramses III. The reliefs within showed the pharaoh introducing his son to the gods in the afterlife - fantastic colors all around. The second tomb was that of his mother. Both Mel and I remarked what an amazing added dimension the painting brings to the carvings in the tombs - not only do they appear far more welcoming and, well, modern than the plain carved stone we all associate with Egyptian antiquities, but there are details in the painting that are not present in the underlying carving - for example, a vulture's beak that has a straight carved line separating the upper and lower halves is painted with a jagged line, giving the bird a far more ferocious countenance. (Vultures were considered the protectors of the dead and appear on the ceilings of most tombs and temples.)

The next stop was the Valley of the Kings, probably the most famous historical site in the West Bank. We were able to visit three tombs, those of Ramses IV, Ramses IX and Merenptah, the 13th son of Ramses II (he had plenty more, believe it or not). I must confess, my descriptions of these sights won't do them justice - it's difficult to convey the size and feeling of the enormous spaces carved into solid rock. In addition, the paintings and carvings do tend to look a bit similar after you've seen enough of them (guess I won't be becoming an Egyptologist). Some of the highlights:

• Ramses IV's tomb was inhabited by Copts (Egyptian Christians, remember?) when their persecution drove them into the hills. There was a fair amount of Coptic graffiti scrawled within the tomb, which was a little strange to see - anywhere else in the world, the 1800-year old graffiti would've been sufficient for me as a tourist, but here it felt modern and gauche. In addition, the painting of Nut across the ceiling was beautiful and must have taken forever to complete. The main tomb was probably 30 feet by 50 feet with a 20 foot ceiling. Enormous.

• Merenptah's tomb was the longest of the three, easily three hundred feet in length. His outer sarcophagus was placed in the middle of the largest chamber for tourists, a mammoth block of stone that seems impossible to move, let alone get down the pasageway we just navigated (which isn't small, maybe 10 feet wide and 10 feet high).

• Ramses IX's tomb was apparently completed in a hurry. The workers started on a pharaoh's tomb as soon as he ascended to the throne, and only worked on it until about a month after his death, so short-lived pharaohs naturally have a few rushed jobs in their tombs. Here the ceiling wasn't chiseled/scraped flat before painting, so the wonderful mural follows the contours of the rock as they were when the initial chamber was made. A small detail, to be sure, but one that brings the process and its participants to life.

We also paid the extra fee to enter the tomb of Tutankhamun. Everything but one of the gilded coffins is now in one museum or another throughout the world, but the tomb is still worth visiting. The mummy usually resides there, but was out for forensic analysis when we visited - ah well. The coffin was gorgeous, though we were a bit jaded having seen the pieces in the Egyptian museum.

As a side note, we bought the audio book of Elizabeth Peters' entertainingly bad The Serpent and the Crown for the drive back from Cheyenne, Wyoming to California. It's set in 1920's Egypt and is part of a laughably long series (I apologize if I'm offending fans of the works - the audiobook was so desperately overacted it's hard to be objective). At any rate, we got a photo of the tomb marked K.V. 55, which featured in the book - it's right next to the shaded stand where the buses park.

Our third and final stop was the temple of Hatshepsut (Hot Cheap Suit), an enormous temple carved out of solid rock for one of the most prominent female Pharaohs. Statues of her in pharaonic garb (including a beard with an obvious chin strap) abounded, and the style of the temple was remarkably ahead of its time, resembling works created 500 years later. Very little of the temple was accessible, so we wandered for a bit taking photos and generally trying to stay in the shade as much as possible.

Once we'd wrapped up at the temple, it was back to Luxor proper (on the East Bank) for lunch at the Le Meridien. Seeing as the cruise line had a hotel right next door, we were a little perplexed, but perhaps they didn't have the capacity for the tour group in their buffet restaurant. Lunch wasn't anything special, but at least it wasn't boat food...

We headed to Karnak temple after lunch. A better name would probably be Karnakland, as the site is some 600+ acres of ruins - it seems one of the main tasks for a Pharaoh was to add something to the Karnak temple site (the other was starting your tomb on the West Bank). Imagine wandering all of the ruins you've ever seen crammed right next to one another and you'll get the idea. Some of the high points included the Obelisk of Hatshepsut, several rooms of colonnades that survived remarkably intact and Ramses II's endless tributes to the fertility god, Mmemet, easily recognized by his missing arm and leg and his enormous member projecting from his belly button.

Mmemet was apparently a deformed boy, missing an arm and a leg, who was left behind when the rest of the men were dragged off to war with the Syrians by the pharaoh. When the men returned in defeat many years later, they discovered a remarkable array of children of all ages greeting them on return. Quickly surmising who was responsible, the deformed man was put to death. The pharaoh, however, realized that his ranks had swelled significantly and conscripted all of the new male children he could. He then returned to Syria and defeated his previous opponents in only seven days. After his victory (and apparently with no trace of shame) the pharaoh elevated the same cripple he'd put to death to the status of god. Ah, the privileges of leadership.

Medhat relayed this and many more tasty facts (watercress was the Viagra of the pharaohs, apparently). We had a great time before heading off to Luxor temple, our final stop for the day. The entry is impressive, though a bit lopsided with only one of its two massive obelisks remaining (the other was given to the French as a gift by Mohammad Ali (no, not that one) and stands in the Place de la Concorde in Paris). I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

We then switch back to our big bus and head back to the boat for dinner. I spend the evening swapping photos with folks and completely miss the belly dance show - Mel's review was a resounding 'Eh'. No great loss. We call it a night reasonably early - we have an 8 AM bus tomorrow. Check Mel's blog for the next installment: Goodbye, Cruel Boat.