Luxor

As you can see from this post, we went to Luxor.

This is the general area where Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, Valley of the Kings(including Tut’s tomb), Valley of the Queens, Nefertiti’s Tomb etc are located.

We managed to do Luxor, Karnak, Valley of the Kings, and Hetshepsuts temple.

All pretty spectacular items. We did not get to do Valley of the Queens, or Nefertiti’s tomb. We hope to get back there soon to cover some of what we missed.

We did a felucca ride for part of an afternoon and visited a banana farm.

The weather was gorgeous.

But Kaddee has covered that all well enough in her blog posts.

One thing that I wanted to talk about was serendipity.

Steve (Kaddee’s brother) and I got up at ZERODARK:THIRTY to have breakfast and take the ferry across the river to buy tickets. We had heard that it was important to get there early, cause they sell a limited number. [Turns out there were not a lot of tourists around, and we could have slept another 2 hours easily.]

Our plan was to get there, buy the tickets, and then sit and chill until Kaddee, Sara (Kaddee’s mom) and Kenzie(Kaddee’s niece) arrived.

On the ferry boat over we met Mr. Saleh. He is a guide. He is President of the Guides Guild. He is on the city council of Luxor.

In one of the photos you can see him showing us a photocopy of an article. He was also an extra in the “Death on the Nile” movie.

His picture is on page 151 of the Lonely Planet, Egypt guidebook.

He is the man.

Sitting and talking with him was like sitting with the Godfather. EVERYBODY stopped by to say hello and shake his hand and pay their respects. Mr Saleh never stood up and never went to see anyone. They ALL came to see him.

He chatted with us and gave us pointers on what to do and see. He gave us a ride up to the Valley of the Kings with his driver. He was booked for the day however, so he wasn’t trying to sell his services. Which was a very pleasant change from the usual M.O. in this part of the world.

We got his card and enjoyed chatting with us. We made arrangements so that IF the girls arrived at about the time he was finishing his tour, he would join us as a guide. He normally only does 1 tour a day, 3 or 4 days a week. He was not fishing for more work, but it really felt as though he was offering it as a favor.

We parted with Mr Saleh.

We bought our tickets and hired a driver for the rest of the day. We had him bring us back down to the ferry landing to wait for the girls.

Steve and I had some tea and just kind of zoned out.

The driver wandered off somewhere to socialize with his friends.

When we got the call that the girls were on the ferry, Steve and I chatted for a bit and then got out of the van to go meet the girls.

The ferry had already landed (it is a very quick trip) and our driver had met the girls at the boat and had fended off all the hucksters that meet each ferry. [They are ferocious]. The funny part was that we did not ask him to do this or even describe the 3 girls to him. He picked em out of the crowd and ushered them right to the car! I think we made the right choice of driver.

We then drove back up to the Valley of the Kings.

We hung around for about 10 minutes waiting to see if Mr. Saleh would come back down. They run a tram from the visitors center to the valley entrance, so we waited for 4 or 5 trams to come down.

We decided, “ok, we missed him. Time to get moving”. We get on the tram and head up. Half-way up, we pass the tram coming down. With Mr. Saleh on it. He waved and said he would come back up. I think if he had tapped the tram driver on the shoulder and said “stop here” he would have.

We watied for about 2 minutes and Mr. Saleh came up.

We then had a wonderful tour with him. His knowledge seemed encyclopedic. He has been a guide in the valley for 39 years.

All the tombs have signs in front of them listing facts about the tomb and show a map of the tomb. At each tomb, we would gather in front of the map and Mr. Saleh would talk about the tomb, its discovery and treasures, if any. On the map he would indicate certain spots where we would want to pay attention to some detail or another. We would then go down into the tomb and check things out.

At one of these maps, Mr. Saleh was giving his talk and another group walked up and started to talk over him. He looked at them, and said something in Arabic. The other guide started to argue with him. Mr. Saleh gave him “a look”. The other guide went pale and excused himself. They waited patiently for Mr. Saleh to finish.

Heh.

Walking throught the valley, he was constantly greeted by other guides. Walking the gauntlet of hawkers at the entrance/exit to the Valley and Hetshepsut’s tomb with Mr. Saleh was like crossing the Red Sea behind Moses: the hawkers parted and we followed in his wake.

Towards the end of the day, we went to the Colesium of Memnon. There were tour buses there. One of the guides got off the tour bus and recognized Mr Saleh. She came over to talk to him and she acted like she was meeting a rock star.

She was giddy and her eyes were actually a little watery. She kept asking us “this is your guide?”, “do you know who he is?”, “he is the ‘father’ of all the guides in the valley” [figuratively speaking, we assume].

She was incredulous that we just “stumbled” on him and hired him for the day.

I thought she was going to throw her panties and room key at him.

We then had lunch with him at a local restaurant. I have his card and have emailed him my photos of him and have corresponded somewhat.

When we return to the Luxor area, I will be sure to call up Mr. Saleh. If he is available to be our guide, we would be extremely pleased. I would also be happy to sit and have an ‘ahwa with him.

All because we were mistakenly informed that we had to get to the ticket office at the crack of dawn.