Egypt

Friday, 30 July With a tour group we set out for the West Bank. Four stops were planned: The Valley of Kings, The Temple of Hatshepsut, the Valley of Queens and the Obelisk of Memnon. The first two of course were the highlights. The Valley of Kings was the secret cemetery of the Pharaohs and some other nobles during a period of 500 years. There are 63 tombs found until today. The secrecy is understandable if you think of the treasures that must have been with them. Unfortunately the tombs of Ramses II and Seti I whose tomb is considered as one of the most beautiful and longest in the Valley were not open for the public. So disappointing when you consider that Seti I had depicted the whole book of the dead on his walls. We went to three: the tomb of Ramses III, V/VI and IX. We skipped King Tut's tomb because according to our guide it was not worth to pay the extra ticket. Apparently it is not as pretty as the others. The environmental conditions helped preserve all the colors on the wall paintings so that you really could imagine how all the temples must have looked like. Just amazing. Our guide Peter (he was Egyptian) was very knowledgeable but at the same time also very strict. While he was talking you were not allowed to speak or read in your guide books. You were supposed to listen and if you didn't follow instructions he would reprimand us. My sisters and I started giggling because we felt right back at school. Burcu even turned to me, eyes wide open, put her index finger on her lips and shushed me. We had to laugh so hard that we couldn't stop and of course were scolded for that too. Peter called all of us habibi which means sweetheart or beloved one in Arabic and is used quite commonly for both, female and male. But he would do so with a stone face and also would deliver his jokes with absolutely no facial expressions. He complained of course that nobody was laughing at them and noone in the group dared to tell him that they were just lame. So I had to pull out me best fake laugh and from then on he was visibly happy that someone acknowledged his wit. I asked my fellow travellers for a donation for keeping our guide in a good mood but only raised a laugh. After that we went to the Temple of Hatshepsut. It was build by the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut who managed to reign for 20 years and was succeeded by her stepson Thutmose III. During her reign she had to disguise her feminity by wearing a fake beard and male clothes because it was not that popular to have a female Pharaoh at that time. Her stepson went even so far and erased her name and pictures from all the temples after her death but missed some of them for us to see today. And of course we met Saeko along the way. We came across her several times since she had booked the same tour with a different group. In the evening she gave Burcu some natural herbs for her stomach aches.