Some time under the sun

I've now been in Egypt for a full month and October will bring about a few changes to the normal routine...although the last month hasn't quite been what I'd call routine.  Ramadan has ended with yesterday and today being holidays for everyone, so the streets are full and everyone is out.  Things have been a little slow in starting up since Ramadan slowed everything down, but this allowed me to join Rachel, together with her mom and aunt who were visiting for a couple weeks, for a little sightseeing.  I met them on the Red Sea coast in Hurgada which involved a 3.5 hour train ride to Luxor and then a 6 hour bus ride to Hurgada.  We stayed at a small hotel on the water and spent the first day lounging on the beach and getting massages, and then the second day we spent the day on a boat visiting different reefs for some great snorkeling.

After three nights there we went on to Luxor which is located on the Nile between Cairo and Aswan and spent a day and a half exploring some temples in the city and then the west bank of the river where the valley of the kings was built.  We arrived at our hotel around 2pm and then went out to take some pictures of the Luxor temple.  You are able to get in to see it right up close but we didn't feel like paying and you can get pretty close from the outer fence anyway.  This was followed by an amazing meal at a place called the Oasis Cafe, which was very relaxing and had excellent food if not a slightly overly friendly waiter.  The next day

 we were up early to attempt to beat the heat...a lost cause if you ask me...to visit the West Bank.  Our guide for the day was Mohammed who has his masters in egyptology and he was excellent.  Our first stop was the valley of the kings where the pharaohs were buried.  They keep eleven tombs per year on a rotation and a ticket in lets you see three of them.  We also paid a little extra to see the tomb of Tutankamon because they actually had his mummy on display in his tomb.  So after seeing those four tombs we moved on to see 

Hatshepsut's Temple, significant because she was the only female to rule Egypt, although she did so dressed as a man.  The last stop was the tombs of the workers who built all the tombs in the valley.  When they started building tombs they moved ten families permanently to the west bank and they were never allowed back to the other side so that they couldn't give away the secrets they knew about the tombs.  On their one day off during the week (a week then was 10 days) they would work on their own tombs which are amazing since obviously you'd take much more care with your own tomb than that of another, even if it was for a pharaoh.

That evening we took the longest train ride you could imagine back to Aswan.  What was only supposed to take 3.5 hours took about 7...3 of which were for the last 10km of the trip.  That then brings us to yesterday when, after sleeping in since we only went to bed at 3am, we went out for lunch, rested in the afternoon for a bit and then took Rachel's mom and aunt to the Nubian museum while we had some juice at a hotel close by.  Then today we went to see the Philae Temple which is on an island between the two dams south of town.  The actually moved it while the dam was under construction to a higher island as the one it was originally on is now almost completely submerged.  So now, we've dropped Jan and Betty at the airport and are back at the flat and will be getting ready for a workshop that will start in a few days.  Rachel will be staying with me until the 7th and I'll be glad to have the company.  After a nice holiday hopefully I remember how to work!