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.