“There are several ways to react to being lost. One is to panic. Another is to abandon yourself to lostness, to allow the fact that you’ve misplaced yourself to change the way you experience the world.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry
Go-Date: Day 65, Wednesday. March 28
Lesson Learned: Do Cairo, see what you want to see, and then get out. It’s a big, crowded city, hard to see, and sometimes difficult to tolerate. There are jewels here, so make like Cary Grant in It Takes a Thief and steal the treasures you want and slip away. We slipped south to Luxor.
Luxor straddles the Nile about 650 kilometers south of Cairo (400 miles). It holds about 550,000 people and about 1,000,000 donkeys. In ancient times it was known as Thebes. Luxor is a treasure chest. If the pyramids, Saqqara, and the Egyptian Museum fascinated you, you will find Luxor orgasmic. There are absolutely more antiquities here than should be allowed.
We arrived early in the day, marched to the curb for a taxi and promptly picked one that required six guys to push start it. Seriously, we wondered if we may be in for trouble. We chose to stay on the West Bank of the Nile as we had read it was slower, less dense, and more relaxing. Besides, most of the tombs and temples are on the west side as well. The ride was uneventful, and the driver only got lost once on the way to the hotel. I’ll cut him some slack as it’s a new boutique hotel that’s only been open for about 7 months.
We missed the entrance to the hotel. Understandable as a donkey was parked in the drive between the chicken cages, and the half dozen kids playing soccer on the roadside. We did a U-turn by the cop with the Uzi, backtracked and turned in down a narrow alley and came to the hotel. It was not a first impression made for love at first sight. Four guys erupted from the front door of the hotel to help us with our luggage before we could urgently explain to the driver we wanted to leave. Grudgingly, into the hotel we went with mixed emotions, and walked into paradise on the Thebes. No, not the Thebes River, it’s close to the Nile, but that’s the name of the hotel, the Thebes Hotel (https://hotelthebes.com/).
Oh baby, we have arrived.
Linda checked us in and said she had upgraded us since we had extended our stay. How cool is that? Our room was large with a king size bed, a private balcony and a common patio that nobody ever came to. We are one flight under the roof-top pool/bar/café that had a killer view of the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens, Tombs of the Nobles, and one camel munching on sugar cane in the field below us. I think I’ll name him Frank in honor of Ellen’s friend from the Bazaar.
Hassan, the owner and his staff were fabulous. He spent 20 years in Belgium as a chef and brought his experience back with him to Luxor. The food in his café exceeded anything we’d had in Egypt to this point. The view was amazing and we met many people from numerous countries and were happy to have that coveted Ahhhhhhhh moment where we knew we could relax and re-energize our batteries for the remaining time in Egypt.
While at the Thebes, you’ll need a driver to get to all the sites. Hassan will be happy to set you up with one, or you can reach out to our driver Al-Tayyeb Hassan (Mr. Kind), telephone: 002-01001349308, tayyeb.hassan@luxor-west-bank.com. When you do, he will tell you “The West is the Best”, well either that or “Those others, they are shit!” He’s colorful, he either knows or is related to everyone on the West Bank, and can talk the pants off a priest in the middle of a convent. He will get you everywhere you want safely. Just keep his telephone number handy so you can get him to fetch you if you finish a temple early. As always, I don’t get a nickel for endorsements, we just found them worthwhile in our travels.
Colossi of Memnon, Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, Ramesseum
The Colossi of Memnon are two massive stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who reigned in Egypt during the Dynasty XVIII. For the past 3,400 years (since 1350 BC), they have stood in the Theban Necropolis, located a few kilometers west of the River Nile. Now, it’s like a roadside park between Amarillo and Lubbock that you must stop at because you have to pee. They just kind of jump out at you from the side of the road. Stop, take a look, snap a few pictures and go. Its all roped off so you can’t walk around the site, but its free, which is the only free site I can recall that doesn’t cost anything. If you stuck these statues in a US museum, they would be the star attraction and have lines at the ticket office.
Around the corner to the right of the colossi is the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, also known as the Djeser-Djeseru. It’s a mortuary temple built for the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Hatshepsut (a lady pharaoh that glued on a beard to blend in), it is located beneath the cliffs at Deir el-Bahari on the west bank of the Nile near the Valley of the Kings (she wasn’t allowed into the boys club in spite of the fake whiskers). The temple, dedicated to the god Amun is situated next to the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II, which served both as an inspiration and later, a quarry. The temple is considered one of the “incomparable monuments of ancient Egypt.” (probably written by a tour guide in the Egyptian Department of Antiquities).
Next down the road is the Ramesseum, which is the memorial temple (or mortuary temple) of Pharaoh Rameses II. It was researched and explored by a Frenchman Jean-François Champollion, who visited the ruins of the site in 1829 and first identified the hieroglyphs making up Rameses’s names and titles on the walls. It was originally called the House of millions of years of Usermaatra-setepenra. It is an impressive structure, rivaling the temples on the east side of the Nile.
We spent about 2 hours here, we could have spent more, but it was lunch time. Ellen and I poked around the temple, then we scooted across the road to the village of the temple workers. I promise you, these tombs and temples are closer together than theme rides in Disney World. After a hot afternoon it was time to head back to paradise for drinks, dinner, and a lovely sunset on the roof-top.
Another thing about this area is you find several abandoned villages on the edge of the desert. It’s not that the people decided to move like they did in Silverton, Colorado. They moved at the dictate of the government because some unfortunate villager decided to dig a basement and fell into an undiscovered tomb. This place is honeycombed with dead guys waiting to come out of their sarcophagus. So, its good for history, but unfortunate for the villagers that they were forced to leave. I cannot emphasize to you enough, that these archaeological sites are back to back next to one another. I originally thought the tombs would be spread across miles in the desert, but no they are like row houses in Brooklyn.
One thing that you really get accustomed to in Luxor is the Call to Prayer. It happens 5 times a day and you really get used to telling time by it. You also get used to donkeys braying, roosters crowing, and the occasional camel bleating (I guess you’d call it a bleat, I’m not sure what the official term for the camel sounds are). During March you also get used to the smell of sugar cane fields being burned. Sometimes it gets so smoky you can’t even see the cliffs overlooking the tombs from the hotel roof, and that’s only 3 kilometers or so. Ahhhhhh, I could stay here for months.