Egypt: Day Eight, Part One

As it did yesterday, morning comes all too early, before daybreak, and even before breakfast, although those of us who have opted for this side-trip are given a Doggie Bag as we get off our boat-hotel.  I’m too excited to be sleepy.  In my sideline of tour guide, over the years I’ve organized hot-air balloon rides for people in France yet never been up in one myself.  Today’s the day!

       A small boat takes us across the Nile where we board a minibus and head inland a bit, into tomb territory.  Unlike Cairo, almost nothing here is stirring yet, although the horizon is getting lighter.  We pull into a parking area where other buses are already parked... and where some balloons - about a dozen in all - are already taking off while others fill with hot air and excited people.  The flames from the burners stand out against the still-dark sky and magically light the balloons from inside, turning them translucent.

Mohammed

     We scramble aboard as the balloon is still inflating, but already erect.  Mohammed is our pilot.  He’s young, calm, cuts a dashing figure... and knows it.  Some of the crew hold the lines while others help us into the basket.  A woman I’ve become friendly with, Dawn from British Columbia, is in our group, as is Suzanna, who walks with a cane and has a hard time getting into the basket.  But she’s resolute, as she will prove to be throughout the entire trip, along with Larry and Tim, all three of them walking with canes.
     


      Slowly, as the sky warms to pink, the balloon lifts off, straining at its lines... and then we’re free.  The only noise is our burner keeping us upward-bound.  When Mohammed shuts it off, all is silence, except for our exclamations of “look over there!” and “do you see that?!”  I’ve never seen palm trees from above .  They spring up along the irrigation canals, like an eruption of green fireworks..  And there are fields of sugar cane - the biggest crop in the Luxor region - all in tight-knit rows that mask the parched earth.  Where the canals end, all greenery stops abruptly, contrasting starkly with the desert hills of the Libyan Plateau beyond.

Temple of Amenhotep

       First we see the columns of the Temple of Amenhotep as we drift south.  And the Colossi of Memnon in the distance, which we’ll see later on the way back to the boat.  Below lay the ruins of Deir-el-Medina, where the artisans who built all these tombs of the Valley of the Kings lived.  We see the beaten paths they took to work, paths weaving up the sides of hills and disappearing.  We float silently above mere holes in the cliff walls, every single one a tomb of some noble.
       Then slowly we change direction and suddenly there it is, one of the things I’ve always wanted to see:  the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, its three simple tiers of columns tight against the cliff behind.  I’d expected to visit this - put it on my A List - but not from the air, and not with no one within miles of it.  Its beauty is breath-taking.

Temple of Hatshetsup

       There are shops below also, still closed, one of which advertises items made of alabaster.  We skirt the minaret of a mosque also, its needle the only thing even close to our basket.  Flying over the houses is less beautiful.  They’re simple boxes, of the same color as the sands around them, with a few trees.  But some of them have their roof literally covered with trash... old tires, building materials, boxes, anything that isn’t needed inside the apartments.  That I would have preferred not seeing.

       After a good hour or so - I’ve totally lost track of time, which is fitting in such timeless surroundings - Mohammed brings us lower and lower... and worryingly seems to be aiming at a field where the farmer is burning sugar cane.  As we come lower, children run out to greet us.  Mohammed explains to us about landing.  He uses a line he’s surely used before - and the other pilots also perhaps: “In Britain, you land in a crash.  In America, a landing is bumpy.  But an Egyptian landing is smooth.”  And it is.  We don’t even have to do whatever it was he said to do immediately if he yelled out the order.  The basket was suddenly just down, the crew appearing, to grab the lines.  The children are trying to beg for money.  Dawn and I want to share our food with them, but the crew tells us not to.  Although both of us would like to share what we have, maybe some other tourists don’t.

Egypt: Day Seven, Part Three

Dr. Mustafa Waziri

Then we meet Dr. Mustafa Waziri, Director General of Luxor Antiquities.  He walks us through this section of the temple.  It has a long history of misuse, with Coptic Christians hiding in it from the Romans, and putting up their own frescos over the original ones.  Other parts were destroyed by the Persian invaders, as they did to most of the temples throughout Egypt.  And the Romans re-used the stone.  Then there were the earthquakes of course.  Waziri says only 30% of everything ever built is above ground; the rest still lies buried.

       Waziri’s team show us all the rooms in this part of the temple, where they’re busy restoring the artworks.  In the paintings that cover all the surfaces, there are many colors, all made from ground-up minerals.  The white is limestone, the light blue is turquoise while dark blue is lapis.  Red ochre makes the red color and yellow ochre the yellow.  Black is simple coal.  To prep the wall, the ancient Egyptians used beaten egg white; egg yolks were used as varnish.  All these details are fascinating.

Mahmoud with his discovery: a statue of Ramses II

Dr. Waziri is as excited about his work as Dr. Hawass, but tends to talk more in “we” than “I”.  In fact, he starts by introducing his team, and later on, after showing us the restoration work, he lets one of the diggers, Mahmoud, unveil a statue of Ramses II.
       Why Mahmoud?  Because he’s the one who found it.  Mahmoud is smiling from ear to ear.  I ask him how long he’s been working in archeological excavations.  He says “40 years”, then hesitates - to find the words - and adds “And my father before, and his father before.”  I ask him “All the way back to the Pharaohs?” and he smiles that big smile of his and says “Maybe”.
       The centuries buried this statue of Ramses all except for one corner that stuck out.  As it lay hidden near a water tap, all the women would use that corner as a pumice stone, to scrape the callus off their feet while their pails filled up...  which is why the statue has that one part worn away.  It’s little stories like this that I love.

After several hours and lots of information gleaned, the bus
appears and takes us to our new home away from home:  a four-story boat.  The lower level, part-way below the surface of the water, is the restaurant.  The main floor is the front desk, gift shop, lounge and bar.  Above that are two levels of rooms and the top deck is for just watching the water flow by while you read, have a drink or soak in the jacuzzi or mini-pool.  The outer wall of each room is pure window, which sometimes is a blessing and other times means that, if there weren’t any drapes (which mercifully there are) you’d be looking into the room of the boat you’re tied up against.  On various days, in various towns, we’re the first at the quay; other times we have to cross one or two other boats to reach terra firma.  It’s kind of a crap shoot, and you never know when you go to bed if you’ll be moored in the same place when you wake up.  They’re very good at doing the switcheroo while you sleep.
       As we have time before sunset, fellow traveler Julie and I decide to try to find the Luxor Museum.  As she works in the museum curating business, she’s been here before a decade or so earlier and thinks she can find it.... which it turns out she can’t.  We walk along the river, then down a few perpendicular streets and finally back along a main street that triangulates us back to the river again.  No museum in sight, and some of the sidestreets are not too reassuring.  But in spite of the fear that’s been instilled in us by the U.S. news, and as two Western women unaccompanied in a Muslim country, no one bothers us - although they do stare - and we make it back in time for supper.
       After that, there’s nothing to do but a shower and sleep.  Especially as tomorrow will be the second early-rise day in a row, but for an excellent cause:  a hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings!

Luxor Corniche along the Nile and our boat-hotel (right)