Hi again,
today was a pretty full day. We got going at about 7:30 and headed to the Valley of the Kings. Even in the morning it was crazy hot out. With admission to the valley you get to go into three tombs. King Tut's tomb was another 15 bucks, and since it's so tiny and mobbed we decided not to bother, but we did get to do three pretty cool ones. Thutmoses III, the conqueror of many different areas in the Middle East, had a pretty cool tomb that was up a flight of kind of scary stairs. It's really old, so all the artwork in the tomb was stick figures - hey! Something I could draw!
The tomb I really wanted to see was closed for renovations, but the other two tombs we visited were also pretty cool, and very well preserved. It was incredibly hot in there, and humid from everybody sweating buckets, so when we emerged into the 100 degree heat, it felt downright cool and breezy!
After the Valley of the Kings we hit Hatshepsut's funerary temple. We learned a bit about the family drama between Hatshepsut, who was appointed regent for her nephew and just never gave up the throne when she was supposed to, and the next pharaoh, who propltly chiseled her name and image off of everything in the temple the minute she died. Ah sweet revenge. The tour guide kind of rushed us through so we didn't get a chance to look at everything, but it was really cool to be there. And a zoo! Even Giza didn't have so many people crawling all over it.
After that we hit the Valley of the Queens, which was practically deserted, and strangely filled with tombs of princes rather than queens. The prince's tombs were cooler than the ones in the Valley of the Kings, though, because even if they were smaller, they were much better preserved and much more intimate. They had a lot of pictures of the pharaoh introducing his son to the various gods, which was very touching compared to all the formalized stuff in the kings' tombs.
I've checked into my new hotel, which is right near the Luxor temple. I can see the avenue of the sphinxes from the roof deck of my hotel, which is pretty cool. This place also has hot water, which is an upgrade from the "3 star" hotel I was in last night. They're hooking me up with a tour of some of the more remote temples on Thursday, so tomorrow it's off the Luxor Museum and the Mummification Museum.
today was a pretty full day. We got going at about 7:30 and headed to the Valley of the Kings. Even in the morning it was crazy hot out. With admission to the valley you get to go into three tombs. King Tut's tomb was another 15 bucks, and since it's so tiny and mobbed we decided not to bother, but we did get to do three pretty cool ones. Thutmoses III, the conqueror of many different areas in the Middle East, had a pretty cool tomb that was up a flight of kind of scary stairs. It's really old, so all the artwork in the tomb was stick figures - hey! Something I could draw!
The tomb I really wanted to see was closed for renovations, but the other two tombs we visited were also pretty cool, and very well preserved. It was incredibly hot in there, and humid from everybody sweating buckets, so when we emerged into the 100 degree heat, it felt downright cool and breezy!
After the Valley of the Kings we hit Hatshepsut's funerary temple. We learned a bit about the family drama between Hatshepsut, who was appointed regent for her nephew and just never gave up the throne when she was supposed to, and the next pharaoh, who propltly chiseled her name and image off of everything in the temple the minute she died. Ah sweet revenge. The tour guide kind of rushed us through so we didn't get a chance to look at everything, but it was really cool to be there. And a zoo! Even Giza didn't have so many people crawling all over it.
After that we hit the Valley of the Queens, which was practically deserted, and strangely filled with tombs of princes rather than queens. The prince's tombs were cooler than the ones in the Valley of the Kings, though, because even if they were smaller, they were much better preserved and much more intimate. They had a lot of pictures of the pharaoh introducing his son to the various gods, which was very touching compared to all the formalized stuff in the kings' tombs.
I've checked into my new hotel, which is right near the Luxor temple. I can see the avenue of the sphinxes from the roof deck of my hotel, which is pretty cool. This place also has hot water, which is an upgrade from the "3 star" hotel I was in last night. They're hooking me up with a tour of some of the more remote temples on Thursday, so tomorrow it's off the Luxor Museum and the Mummification Museum.
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