Port of Safaga and our 3 hour car adventure to the Valley of the Kings

Arrived this AM in Safaga, where we will go into Luxor today and spend the night.  The port is much more industrial than I expected, and the ship towers over the town.  There are a few local ferries that have also been unloading passengers, but very different from Solstice I think.  They are local pilgrims returning from performing the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca required by Islam.  They all had piles of luggage, which was slowly being loaded onto some of the local vans that operate as buses, and once they were fully loaded, I was suprised they could move, there was so much luggage piled on top, and so many people inside as well.

We met our guide Mohammad, and our driver, who we'll call Super Mario (his name was also Mohammad, but he drove like Super Mario, so there we go)

Egyptian roads, once you are outside of major cities, are definately a work in progress.  We'd cruise along at 100km/hr, and then encounter a completely unpaved area, where we'd slow down to 20km/hr for a mile or so, and then the paving would start up again and off we'd go again.  It was the craziest thing ever.  You also have to go over a small mountain range to get from Safaga, so it's not just a straight shot.  The craziest part were the checkpoints - apparently, you have to have a pass to drive around out in the hinterlands, so we stopped and showed ours to the bored guards who waved us thru.

Once we got to the other side of the mountains, we passed thru a few towns that were way cleaner than Cairo and Alexandria.  Qena was one of them, it's a very pretty town right on the Nile.  We passed over the Nile river, for we were headed for the Valley of the Kings, which being the "dead" city in Ancient Egypt, would be on the west bank of the NIle (they believed life followed the sun, so the living was on the east side where the sun rose, and the dead were on the west side, where the sun set)

The drive up to the valley was fairly uneventful, we drove by Howard Carter's home, which has recently reopened as a museum (he's the one who found King Tut's tomb) and turned up into the hills.

I don't have many pictures for the Valley, as they don't allow you to take you camera into the valley at all, so ours were left in the car, so I'll just write up what I can remember.

To get into almost any Egyptian attraction, one must walk thru a marketplace of people wanted to sell you assorted souveniers, water, soda and other crap.  They are very agressive, especially since the revolution, tourism has REALLY dropped off, especially in the south.  It's below 50% of what it was prior, and hasn't been helped by the recent unrest in the middle east.

Anyway, after you run the gauntlet, you end up in the visitor center, where Mohammad proceeded to explain that most of the tombs in the valley were built by the New Kingdom Pharoahs, aka the "sissy boys" who were more interested in the appearance and looks then actually running the country, and were the decline of the empire.  The art was significantly different than the earlier eras, more idolized versions of them vs actual images of the people they represented.

Anyway, after our explanation, we went out to get on the little tram up to the valley entrance.  Here's where things got interesting - we had only a very small amount of Egyptian pounds (maybe 100) and our entrance tickets were prepaid as a part of the tour - which allowed us access to 3 tombs, but did not include Ramses VI or Tutankamen, as they were an extra fee.  Well, the ticket office only took Egyptian pounds, so we got the world's worst exchange rate with one of the postcard sellers ($50 for 250 pounds, the normal rate would have been 300-305) but combined with what we had, it was enough for the extra tickets)  So, if you ever go to Egypt, and you have to buy entrance tickets, they only take pounds, no $ or euro.   Make sure to get some!!!

The first tomb we visited was Ramses IV, this tomb had been open since ancient times and was used as a church by the Coptic Christians and also a camp for valley explorers in the past.  Everyone talks about how degraded the wall and celing paintings are and don't expect much.  Maybe my expectations were too low, but this was AMAZING.  They were not in perfect condition of course, but as you got towards the back of the tomb the frescos were incredible - unbelievable really - the colors were so clear, and the drawings were everywhere - from the floor right up and over the ceiling. I've got some postards of the interiors, I will try to take some pictures of them so I can post, but they really don't do it justice.

It was also HOTTER THAN I'VE EVER EXPERIENCED in my life.  After we got back to the ship, someone mentioned that it was 46 degrees C that day, which seems a bit high, but I haven't had a chance to check the internet, so we'll see.   I'd believe it was over 100 for sure though.  Maybe 110.....Anyway, I was pretty sure I was going to die (but I didn't) so I just drank some water and trouped on to the next tomb - Ramses I.