Globe Trotting J's 2019 Trip Day 4: Habibi
We went to sleep last night basking in the golden glow of the pyramids and a great day exploring Cairo. Unfortunately that sleep was cut short with an early morning flight. Our alarms rang out a little before 4 AM and we were downstairs and in the lobby by 4:30 AM to have our driver take us back to Cairo International Airport for our full-day tour of Luxor. We got dropped off, went through security and grabbed a couple of coffees and waited in the business class lounge for our flight to Luxor. Our tour company was nice enough to upgrade our outgoing flight to a business class seat so we got to enjoy a little extra comfort on our hour flight to Luxor.
We arrived a little after 8 AM and found our guide Shaymaa waiting for us right as we got off the plane and were whisked away into a nice touring van to take us on a full whirlwind tour of Luxor. We started our trip off by visiting the Temple of Queen Hatshpsute the only woman pharaoh ever in ancient Egypt. They found this stunning temple built over by another church and were able to restore it in beautiful fashion. Although it's beautiful I kept thinking the entire time that its just hard to imagine building something this beautiful and intricate in the middle of the desert. We spent some time on our own exploring the temple, some of the rooms that they were able to salvage and some of the original paintings and art work on the walls.
After about an hour at the temple we jumped back in the bus and made a pitstop at what we’ve nicely labeled “tourist traps” these are the “extras” that almost every tour that we’ve been on try to get you to go to. We were able to get out of them for our Pyramid tour but given the heat today we decided to go to the alabaster making factory. Jenn sat with our tour guide and the store owner drinking water and eating bread while Jake and I looked around the shop. We spent a good 30 minutes here enjoying their air conditioning and even ended up buying a small elephant to give to one of his friends after some strong negotiations. We left the factory all feeling quite a bit better from the break from the sun and made our way to the Valley of the Kings.
If you were to ask why we came to Luxor while in Cairo, the Valley of the Kings would have been one of the first answers. It houses some of the most famous and intricate tombs of ancient Egypt. We were able to go see three of the dozens of tombs that they’ve located so far (with a lot more they expect to be found in the future). What’s so incredible about all of these tombs is that they were preserved so well that you can see a lot of the ancient portraits and art work on the walls including all of the original paint. It’s sort of hard to explain the feeling of being in a tomb that you know was expertly crafted many thousands of years ago and being there marveling at their work in the twenty first century. Many of the mummies we saw in the Cairo Museum on our first day of the trip were from these tombs. It was quite the experience.
Randomly on our way to our final stop of the day we were asked if we wanted to stop at the Theban Necropolis which was just sitting in the middle of the town of Luxor. We said sure and grabbed a couple of pictures of these stunning statues of pharaohs that have some how survived all of these years. We snapped some pictures and were back in the bus and off to our final stop of the day.
We had no idea that the final stop of the day the Karnak Temple a two-mile property that was a place of worship in Ancient Egypt. Once we got through the welcome center we were let out to the entrance that was lined with small sphinx’s that let out into this giant courtyard and to subsequent rooms of the temple followed by a stunning row of columns, two magnificent obelisks, and a giant lake that was used to measure the level of the nile river and thus judge taxes for all the citizens. Had it been thirty degrees cooler (it was almost 110 degrees) I think we could have spent three hours at the temple. It was a stunning building and it was amazing to see how much of it was still standing and in such great condition. Our guide was nice enough to try and keep us in the shade, take pictures at opportune spots and give us the highlights of the history of this amazing temple.
When we finished up at the temple we got back in the bus and drove off to our final destination of the day, a hotel near the airport to have lunch and relax at before our flight back to Cairo. We got so lucky today to have such a great tour guide. Shaymaa was an angel. She took a liking to Jenn right away, realized she was struggling with the heat and took care of her from the very start to the very end. The two bonded of Shaymaa’s progressive views on women (for the region), her own life, and the two were basically inseparable from the start to when we said goodbye at the hotel. The entire day she called us her “habibi” which translated means your great friend, my love, my darling.
We sat back at the hotel, had a nice light lunch, Jake and I had a cheese pizza and Jenn stuck with soup and rice. We walked around after lunch and took pictures of the beautiful views of the nile river, and sat in the lobby to wait for our flight back to Cairo. We were picked up at the hotel at 4 PM and made our way back to the Luxor Airport and waited around for our flight. I’ll never forget being dropped off for our flight and being in the Luxor Airport nearly all alone. The airport had no flights for the next two hours (ours was the first of the evening) so we sat in what felt like an abandoned airport waiting for security to open up. Eventually we made it on the plane and were back in Cairo at 8 PM.
Our driver from the morning was there waiting for us and we fought through the rough Cairo traffic to get back to our hotel a little after 9 PM. We had room service ordered via their App and so when we arrived back at our room a few minutes later we had a club sandwich and pasta ready for our dinners. After dinner we packed up our suitcases, went through all of our amazing photos from the day and turned out the lights a little after 11 PM basking in what was an adventure of a lifetime. Tomorrow we’re off to Abu Dhabi, until then goodnight from Egypt.
