We’re now at “ground zero” of Egypt’s ancient civilization! On the east bank of the Nile, Luxor, the ancient city of Thebes, is some 1000 km and an hour’s flight south (that is upstream) of Cairo. A city of more than half a million people, Luxor and the nearby Valley of the Kings on the opposite bank of the Nile, are home to an estimated 70% of the world’s antiquities.

Even in November, Luxor is a hot and dusty city whose inhabitants go about their normal daily lives seemingly oblivious to the ancient ruins that their “modern” city is built around.

Running through the centre of Luxor is the 3 km long “Avenue of Sphinxes” much of which lay buried under houses although some attempt has been made now to excavate and restore what was hidden for so long. At one end of the avenue is the Temple of Luxor built some 3000 years ago by pharaohs Ramses II and Amenhotep III whose massive granite statues guard the temple’s entrance. In the 6^th Century a Coptic church was constructed on top of a section of the temple, later replaced by a mosque which is still there today. At the other end of the Avenue is the largest religious building ever constructed, the Temple of Karnak, built over a period of 1300 years beginning some 3500 years ago.

There are far more tourists here than in Cairo and all of the ancient sites we visit seem pretty crowded. Our guide tells us that tourism is starting to pick up again from the low reached three years ago, but the numbers are still a fraction of what they once were. 

By early afternoon, we’ve had our fill for the day of Egyptology (there’s only so much you can take after you’ve been up since 4 am!) and we’re dropped off at our “floating hotel”. At the peak, there were more than 300 of them plying this stretch of the Nile between Luxor and Aswan – all a standard length, width, height and draft to allow them to pass through the Esna lock south of Luxor, each capable of carrying up to a couple of hundred tourists in varying degrees of comfort. Today, there’s just a handful still operating and we pass by many disused ones moored along the river bank as we journey south

The Valley of the Kings

We spend a night at our Luxor mooring – just a short night though as the next morning we’re up once again at 4am (that’s three days in four – can’t remember when that last happened!) to be ferried across the Nile to reach the launch site for a dawn hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings. The conditions are absolutely perfect and as the sun comes up we’re treated to an unforgettable experience. From 2000 feet up on a perfectly clear morning we are treated to a view of what can only be described as “ancient Egypt”. The River Nile heads north and south for as far as the eye can see, bounded for no more than a few kilometres on either side by a rich green patchwork of fields – intensely fertile land watered by the river with its annual “inundation”. This is the land which has sustained Egypt’s population since ancient times. Below us on the Nile’s west bank, the green strip gives way abruptly to the sandy brown desert and scattered around we spot the ruins of numerous temples and massive statues. Rising up from the desert floor, just a few miles west of the river is a mountain with a pyramid-shaped peak. The valley below this peak, now easily identified by the modern road snaking up into it is the Valley of the Kings – home to more than 60 tombs, half of them tombs of ancient Egypt’s pharaohs, including the fabled tomb of Tutankhamun.  

Later in the morning, back on solid ground, we spend time in the Valley itself and get to visit three of the tombs themselves. Excavation at the site continues and there are likely many more tombs yet to be unearthed. It’s unlikely that any “treasure” remains – much was lost to grave robbers beginning in ancient time. An exception of course was the treasure discovered in Tutankhamun’s tomb in the 1920’s most of which we’d seen a couple of days earlier in the Cairo Museum. The interior of the tombs we visit can only be described as breathtaking! Nobody who visits one for the first time is prepared for what they are about to see – just look at some of the photos we took. Centuries of sand has been dug out, lighting and walkways installed and glass to protect the walls from curious visitors, but otherwise, the interiors look much as they would have done when built and decorated 3500 years ago. Truly stunning…..!!!

So are there sharks in the Nile?

But back down to earth! As we’re being ferried pre-dawn across the Nile for our balloon ride, one of our group (I’ll leave you to guess the nationality…!!) asks the guide “are there sharks in the river?” followed almost immediately by yet another stupendously dumb question “where does the water in the Nile come from when it doesn’t rain much here?”

The pharaohs must be turning in their graves…..