Lots of Hot Air

Activity level: 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️

Modes of transportation: 🚢👟🚐🛥️🎈

We set our alarm, optimistically, for 3:45, only to be woken up at 3:30 by a wake-up call from the boat. We disembarked, walked over, and boarded a different, smaller, boat to head to the West Bank. In ancient Egypt, they believed that the west represented death (because of the setting of the sun), so they made their tombs on the West Bank. Because of this, the hot air balloons take off and see the sights on the West Bank.

On the way, we met an Australian guy named Cyrian (maybe), who we ended up talking to for a while. His wife had balked at the tour when she found out it started at 4:30 (smart woman). He had traveled a lot and gave us some good pointers and funny stories.

Our balloons wouldn’t start because the winds were slightly too high, so we killed time talking and walking in a circle for a cameraman (yeah, that’s the best explanation we can give. It was weird).

Photo of our camera man, we didn’t exactly want to be filmed that early in the morning. You can see the dawn starting in the background.

Finally, they got the go-ahead slightly after sunrise, and we watched as the balloons were filled before preparing to board the baskets.

The balloons took a minute to fill up. Sunrise had started before we were able to get up, but at least we were able to see the beautiful vibrant colors of the balloons.

It was surprisingly loud!

One thing before we boarded… our balloon had a hole in it. Our guide insisted it was fine (note: he did not join us in the basket).

Our new Australian friend agreed to join us for our segment of the basket and gave us good tips. Such as: brace yourself for the landing as most baskets tip over.

And we’re off! We had an amazing overhead view of some of the excavations we were set to tour later in the day.

To the right are the Valleys of the Kings and Queens, in the center are the sugar cane farms.

Our Australian friend was relieved to give Sarah the front of the basket. She had (almost) no fear at the edge despite the long drop below.

Panoramic view of the desert, sugar cane farms, balloons, and Nile in the distance

Preparing to land near the Valley of the Kings

It was awesome, both to see the sights and to see the balloons. We saw the valley of the kings, Hatshepsut’s temple (more on those later), the valley of the queens, and some excavated worker camps among many others. We only got a little tingle of acrophobia, but it passed quickly.

We finished up there and went back to the boat for breakfast, which was also a great spread. After that, we had about an hour until our tour began, so we napped and got ready a little more.

The food was awesome and we also realized today that our waiter, Peter, would be joining us for every meal for the next 5 days. Peter was insistent on making sure we got the full “ultra deluxe experience”. He would intercept our plates as we were walking back to carry them for us. And would make notes of what we liked to have it ready for our next meal, such as Sarah half guava juice and half orange juice for breakfast every morning. We’re not used to this kind of service, but we loved Peter.

Ashraf picked us up at 9 and we took a cab to the Valley of the Kings. This is the valley where many of the famous kings from the 18-20th dynasties are buried (Ramses 2, 4, 9, etc. about 3500 years ago) and the place where the famous king Tutankhamen was uncovered in the 1920s. On the way in, Ashraf told us all about the curse of the pharaoh (which he, as an archaeologist, can’t believe in).

3D mapping of the tombs buried into the mountain side

Many of these tombs were robbed, but unlike the pyramids (which were about a thousand years older) there are still a lot of the original hieroglyphics inside the temple. The hierogplyhs are all the ancient holy books, meant to serve as a guide to get to the afterlife. They’re beautiful and fascinating to decipher.

We were able to go into the tombs of Ramses 4, 6, and 9. All of them were slightly different (after all, they wouldn’t have seen anyone else’s tomb since they were sealed) with very similar themes. We were also amazed at how they burrowed so far into the mountain so cleanly. Super cool.

Next, we drove over to the Hatshepsut temple, which was built by a woman pharaoh. There weren’t many women pharaohs—this one got her power by taking it from her nephew. When he grew up, he ousted her and changed her name to his in every place but one (that’s how they know she built it). He also forgot to change some feminine possessive pronouns, so it’s more obvious that he just replaced his name. Ancient power struggles!

The temple is built into the side of the mountain and tunnels into the valley of the kings because she considered herself a king. It was extremely beautiful and striking.

We had to do the classic “blow off the dust to read ancient runes” technique.

After that, we needed to get back because our boat set sail at 1:30. We had a fun surprise in the room!

Towel swan and heart!!! Plus views of the Nile from our room. Sarah was thrilled!

It had already been a long day, so we enjoyed the great lunch spread and then relaxed on the boat.

We went to the top deck to enjoy the beautiful views of the Nile for a few hours and see the sunset and enjoy tea time.

Tea time was every day at 4pm. The staff kept laughing as Sarah made 4 rounds for the snacks.

The sunset quickly got fiery once tea time ended.

The was taken at the same time and significantly less orange. One side was definitely more “lively” than the other.

We loved looking at the Palm trees with the sunset in the background.

While we were waiting for dinner and enjoying the last of the sunset, we got an exciting FaceTime from Sarah’s family! Robert and Mandy revealed the gender of their baby!

Then a cocktail hour on board the boat. Before we got cocktails, we had to sit through a funny hype-man presentation of all the workers on the boat, complete with techno and lights and a microphone with an echo effect.

They had everything from piña coladas to Mai Tais.

We sat with some Canadians and made friends before heading down for dinner. They told us a long tale about their negotiations in the rock vase shop from the day. Apparently, they got a vase for about 1/8 of the “starting” price by guffawing and leaving (the shop owners followed them to the car with the “final” offer). Good to know!

Dinner was great! We each ordered the Egyptian Beef cooked in a tagine with Egyptian rice, which was amazing. We ended up talking to the couple at the table next to us for the whole dinner. The husband had just retired after never taking a vacation longer than 2 weeks his whole career, and they were loving being able to travel and see the world. It was a fun time.

After that, we worked a little on the blog and then went to sleep early. This was a really long day and we needed to recover.

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