africa – Adrian's Got The Moose

Valley of the Kings: Part I

Due to the Valley of the Kings being on the West Bank of the Nile, opposite to the modern city of Luxor, visiting the Valley under my own steam, short of hiring a car, seemed impossible. Against my usual nature, I decided to book a tour through my hotel.

Shortly after eight o’clock, I was picked up in a mini-bus, with one other client on board, and proceeded to pick up another to the north of my hotel. One South African who works on oil rigs, and one Englishman, a tradie from Bristol. With the addition of myself, an agreeable bunch who immediately formed a pact with the tour guide as our enemy.

At the Valley of the Kings ticket office, an expansive and soulless building, which was still much more impressive than the simple ticket booths at Giza. Our guide directed us to the automated kiosks, rather than to fight for a position in the queues for a human. Here, we discovered that the minimal entry ticket only provided access to a handful of the least interesting tombs in the Valley. This is how the Egyptian Government keeps these sites as a massive cash cow. With our guide’s dubious advice, I chose three add-on tombs. Later, I made the mistake of checking my bank app for the transaction; I could have stayed in a luxury accommodation anywhere in Egypt outside of Cairo for a few nights for less than that figure.

Heading through the turnstiles and battling through the hordes of people who thought nothing of standing in front and immediately behind them, we were hit up for 30 EGP for a ride to the main entrance via those extended-cab gold carts so beloved by governments the world over. The driver also made a stringent attempt for backsheesh at the end of this two-minute trip, which I pretended to not hear. While this did save us a walk, uphill and in the sun, it was still irritating.

After the main entrance, our guide bustled us past the covered market with warnings about how aggressive the sellers are. Then we were set loose, with the announcement that we would have forty-five minutes in the Valley of the Kings. This is one of the reasons I avoid tours; entirely unreasonable time restraints.

During the New Kingdom, the Pharaohs made an observation that building massive tombs in the shape of pyramids did nothing but advertise where all that sweet loot was piled up, and that a more subtle approach was needed. Thus, to the West of the Nile and the ancient city of Thebes, a wadi was reserved for the burial of the royals. The idea being that once the tombs were sealed, no one would know that gold, silver, and gems equivalent to multiple years of Ancient Egypt’s GDP was hidden behind the stone. Of course, it was all for naught, as all but one of the tombs were looted before the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, most of them within years of the pharaoh’s death, at least sometimes with the consent of the new pharaoh, with him or her taking a cut. I suspect that the suggestion that Pharaohs not be interred with so much wealth was never stated by anyone wishing to keep their head attached to their bodies.

Impossible to take a pic of the entire valley.

The first, and most impressive tomb I visited was KV 17, the former home of Seti I, son of Rameses I. He was most notable for his military campaigns, especially into Libya and the Levant. KV17 is famous for its decorated walls.

While the whole tomb was stunning, I was greatly drawn to a depiction from The Book of the Heavenly Cow, which I will pretend I knew all about before I visited this tomb.

The tomb was very crowded, with hordes of Americans, Germans, and (sigh) Australians getting in my way at every turn.

The blue on the ceiling! Astrological depictions.

To be continued…

Leaving Alexandria

Having spent fruitless time and megabytes attempting to book a bus ticket to Luxor without having to book out an entire bus, I decided to wing it and do things the old school way. I arose at seven, dumping my room keys at the reception and took an Uber to the local microbus station.

The driver drove past the station two hundred metres before dropping me off, not quite believing this white guy was not on a tour. When I walked uphill to the train station, with help from a staff member at a nearby coffee shop, I discovered that no microbuses were heading to Luxor, but I could get one to Cairo, which I was trying to avoid, and then find something to Luxor. I hopped on the bus, which was nearly empty, and waited.

The deal with these decidedly tourist-unfriendly buses is that they leave when full, not to any schedule known to man or gods. I have been told you can pay for the empty seats to leave quickly, but I have never been asked to do this, and the suggestion seems to go against the whole principle of the situation. The fare must be paid in cash, and is handed to either the driver’s offsider or an elder customer acting as trip treasurer. This leaves the driver free to talk on the phone, honk his horn, and generally make life unpleasant for other road users.

This time, it took an hour for the bus to fill up, and as usual, I was the only Westerner on board, which made me happy. I paid 160 EGP for this uncomfortable trip, with my duffel bag shoved under my seat- they are not really set up for large amounts of luggage, but it didn’t seem like I was asked to pay extra- which was virtually nothing compared to the 500 EGP I was charged for shorter trips on Gobus coaches. I arrived in Cairo just before noon, which turned out to be the dusty lot I left Cairo from. Due to a confusing series of events, I walked in traffic to another station to buy a ticket to Luxor, which ended up being a Gobus service, leaving from the dusty lot of just walked from, leaving in six hours. The staff member assumed I was a rich American and sold me some kind of deluxe VIP ticket. I took an Uber back to where the bus was leaving, and left my bag there (another 50 EGP). From there I walked, had a very Western lunch, then a more traditional coffee on Meret Basha, overlooking the Ritz Carlton. Next to the Ritz was the old Egyptian Museum, formerly the grand jewel holding the majority of the Ancient Egyptian artifacts. Now it’s dusty and has been eclipsed by the brand new and very sexy Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza. Regardless, I was close and had time to kill, so I crossed multiple lanes of chaotic traffic, passed through security measures more stringent than most airports, paid the fee, and avoided the offer of a guide, and entered.

It’s still worth a look and displays some mummified remains and smaller artifacts. Additionally, the building itself has its own old-world charm.

Main Atrium, featuring King Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye.

During my visit, the place was somehow busier than the GEM during my visit, and I only stayed an hour, concerned I was going to be swept up in a tour group and suffer an existential crisis. I didn’t take many photos, but I did like this Sphinx depicting Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh from the Eighteenth Dynasty.

Crossing the roads again, I made the mistake of buying some mints from a gentleman sitting against a tree, and another man struck up a conversation, and next thing I knew, I was drinking coffee around the corner with him. I knew it was part of a sales pitch, but the path of least resistance led me to go along with it. After coffee and a chat, he led me to his handicrafts and perfume store, and I managed to leave without buying anything, but I did promise I would come back when I am back in Cairo.

When I returned to the bus company office and was reunited with my bag, I walked back over to the dusty lot that served as the overflow bus station where the bus was leaving. This is why I usually avoid expensive bus rides. They typically end up being much like the cheaper ones. The bus, once I was able to board, was very nice, with an LCD screen in front of me in case I wanted to watch any Arabic TV, a USB port for charging (yay), and a very comfortable reclining seat. I was also offered snacks, coffee or tea, and a bottle of water. I slept on and off for the entire trip, read and watched YouTube videos, and wished I had the budget for my internal flights.

At 2 am, the bus attendant woke me as we stopped at Luxor. I gathered my things and acted dumb as a different attendant tried to get a tip out of me for taking my bag out of the bus. I stumbled in the vague direction of my hotel. The first half of this walk I had to fend off the increasingly desperate taxi drivers. In the second half of the walk I had to convince someone walking with his family that I really didn’t want to book a tour while half-asleep.

Mosque I spotted, the only well-lit building at that time.

Luckily, my host was awake, and, showing an incredibly non-Egyptian pragmatism, simply grabbed my bag, showed me to my room, and left me to dream of puppies and maniac pixie dream girls.

Chaotic Cairo Part I

Cairo, the city of a thousand minarets. A city with both feet firmly in the past, trying to sway into the future.

I would love to claim that I booked my hotel in Cairo with deliberate care, with consideration for location, amenities, and reviews. In fact, I booked it after ten seconds of thought, based on price, while frustrated about my lack of progress on planning this part of my trip. My hotel was five stories above an alley dedicated to selling car parts. The staircase wrapped around the old elevator shaft, which had stopped working decades ago.

Would you believe it looks even worse in reality?

The handrails may have once been quite ornate, but any pretense of grandeur had long ago been given up. My room was small, being divided up from a larger suite, two walls made up of unpainted plasterboard, the ceiling peeling paint, and plaster dropping away from the wooden beams. I had to provide my own soap and toilet paper; the shared bathroom did not even feature a bum gun or bucket and jug. It was clean and safe enough, but I took care not to leave anything in my room worth stealing.

In the morning, I walked a short distance from my hotel and found a traditional cafe in an alleyway. There, I enjoyed my first Arabic coffee since COVID.

I think what draws me to these sorts of places is that in a world where you are never far away from a Starbucks, these cafes are largely doing business in the same way for the last hundred years. Cash only, coffee brewed by hand above flames, and barely any English spoken. Fully caffeinated, I completed my efforts in returning to full human status by getting a shave and a haircut at a tiny barber shop I passed earlier. I was, however, not feeling up to any serious sightseeing, so I continued walking aimlessly. I got lost in a series of streets lined with shops selling name plaques, name stamps and similar office supplies. When I managed to escape this enclave, I got lost in a series of streets focused on selling lighting fixtures and other electrical parts. Eventually I found myself in an alleyway where the focus was more useful to me; coffee and shisha. I spent a few hours here, drinking coffee, reading, and watching the tide of humanity, which seemed to be darker-skinned than what I expected to see in Egypt, which I assumed to be Nubian.

There was a lot of traditional dress, traditional three-kisses greetings between men, and, of course, mobile phone use, which was the single sign of modernity, apart from the noise of traffic.

Early evening, I found myself in a pedestrian boulevard, having eaten nothing in Cairo yet, I discovered a no-frills restaurant, which was something of a local favourite.

I wandered some more after my early dinner, finding some nice, more modern cafes down alleyways closed off to traffic.

Later, I was craving air-con and a place where I could do some writing unmolested. I walked to a nearby McDonald’s and ordered a tea from the kiosk before heading upstairs. After waiting half an hour, another patron took pity on me and sent a staff member to find out what was going on. Sarah appeared and commented on my handwriting being much like hers, then proved herself wrong by writing her name in my notebook much neater than I could ever manage.

When Sarah returned to me with my tea, I handed her one of my mini business cards, which delighted her, but she seemed to make a point in accepting it as a souvenir rather than any interest in contacting me. My hopes of gaining a beautiful Egyptian girlfriend dashed, I drank my tea and returned to my hotel to climb the stairs, alone and rejected.