The archeological sites in Luxor are astonishing. Our hotel was super basic, the streets were chaotic & quite dirty reminding us of our time in Delhi, and the poor horses desperately needed feeding. We had just about a day and a half to squeeze in all the sites & had so much fun doing it with our friends Carson & Sadie. We found a driver for about $20 a day via a random TripAdvisor forum with his WhatsApp number. Ahmed was the nicest guy & we were so happy to have him point us to the ticket offices, swiftly pick us up when we were ready to move on, and take us to what ended up being our best meals in Egypt for lunch both days. If you end up in Luxor & need a driver, let us know & we'll happily send his number over.


With so much to see & limited time + energy, we quickly made a priority list during our rooftop breakfast. Our first day's plan was to visit the Valley of Kings, Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, Nefertari's Tomb at the Valley of Queens, and a couple of extras if we still had the energy. The first two were outstanding. The amount of color withstanding time is remarkable. All the tombs in Valley of Kings were empty; the artifacts are in Egyptian museums, but many in the Vatican, British, French, & American museums. Some of the tombs' hieroglyphics panels had even been removed from the walls; fortunately, many were still in perfect condition. The Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut was breathtaking, but we had started to fade & were ready for lunch. Our final planned stop for the day was Nefertari's Tomb; unfortunately, on arrival, the tickets were way more expensive than we had expected, so we promptly rang Ahmed back up & headed to the Mortuary Temple of Medinut Habu. This ended up being the best Plan B ever; it was the coolest site we ended up seeing in all of Egypt. Medinut Habu was well preserved & we had the place nearly to ourselves. We were in awe.


We wrapped the day up with a mezze platter while watching the sunset behind Luxor Temple, grabbed cocktails at a fancy hotel bar that the royals used to frequent in the early 1900s, and dodged cars + horse carriages on our way to dinner.


The following morning, we strolled around the Luxor Temple before Ahmed picked us up to head to the Karnak Temple. Karnak Temple is the second most visited spot in Egypt behind the Giza Pyramids; as we turned the corner from the entrance pavilion to drop down into the Temple, the number of people crammed in was a remarkable contrast to our sightseeing the day prior. We grabbed one last lunch before, equally as delicious as the day prior, before heading to the airport. The security process in this airport was the most backward any of us had experienced, but it was empty & we were early, so it wasn't stressful. Nearly everywhere in Egypt has at least one metal detector & X-ray machine. For this airport, we first did a passport check before entering the building, went through the security machines, and wrote our passport information in a notebook before even getting to the actual security spot. At security, we did the normal process, dropped our bags on a bench, rotated slowly in a circle 2-3 times in another machine, wrote our passport information in another notebook, and then physically backtracked to grab our bags. It was a lot & we cannot imagine what it would have been like had there been more than the 4 of us trying to get through. We grabbed a couple large beers, notably Egypt's "Stella," and awaited boarding.


Reading:

  • Kyle:
  • Kelsey: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

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