Nile River Cruise Day 3
24 December 2011—Christmas Eve
Today we started off by driving to the Valley of the Kings from our “floating hotel” in Luxor. The story behind the VK site is interesting: The whole world knows of the Pyramid of Giza and the Sphinx, as they were deliberately built to be very visible signs to the world, demonstrating the wealth and power of the Pharaohs buried inside. With this public display of wealth, however, came tomb robbers who stripped the tombs of their treasures. Future rulers, not wishing to face the same fate, moved their burial grounds to a very remote, desolate area hundreds of miles to the south, a place known as the Valley of the Kings. In this location, no visible landmarks were erected, so ostentation was replaced by discretion in order to prevent theft.
The most famous of the Pharaohs, King Tutankhamin (“Tut”) was buried in the Valley of the Kings, in one of the smaller, less elaborate tombs. His fame in the modern world is not due to the grandeur of the treasures in his tomb, but instead to the fact that his resting place was the only one discovered intact, allowing us to see an undisturbed burial site. Virtually all of King Tut’s treasures were moved to the Egyptian museum, and his ancient resting place currently is very barren, consisting solely of his mummy and one (of his many) caskets. Incidentally, it cost an extra 100 Egyptian pounds (about $16 USD) to see it; from the “last dollar” economic principle this was not a wise investment, yet it would be one of those regrets to be that close to the famous site and not shell out the few extra dollars in order to see it.
Returning to the ship for lunch, we finally set sail just before 1:00 PM. I sat on the sundeck for a bit, (though it was too windy to change into swim attire), then did some group yoga, as well as a short sprint on the treadmill and the “vibrating platter” (which by now was much easier to use than my first attempt).
24 December 2011—Christmas Eve
Today we started off by driving to the Valley of the Kings from our “floating hotel” in Luxor. The story behind the VK site is interesting: The whole world knows of the Pyramid of Giza and the Sphinx, as they were deliberately built to be very visible signs to the world, demonstrating the wealth and power of the Pharaohs buried inside. With this public display of wealth, however, came tomb robbers who stripped the tombs of their treasures. Future rulers, not wishing to face the same fate, moved their burial grounds to a very remote, desolate area hundreds of miles to the south, a place known as the Valley of the Kings. In this location, no visible landmarks were erected, so ostentation was replaced by discretion in order to prevent theft.The most famous of the Pharaohs, King Tutankhamin (“Tut”) was buried in the Valley of the Kings, in one of the smaller, less elaborate tombs. His fame in the modern world is not due to the grandeur of the treasures in his tomb, but instead to the fact that his resting place was the only one discovered intact, allowing us to see an undisturbed burial site. Virtually all of King Tut’s treasures were moved to the Egyptian museum, and his ancient resting place currently is very barren, consisting solely of his mummy and one (of his many) caskets. Incidentally, it cost an extra 100 Egyptian pounds (about $16 USD) to see it; from the “last dollar” economic principle this was not a wise investment, yet it would be one of those regrets to be that close to the famous site and not shell out the few extra dollars in order to see it.
From that point we went on to see The Temple of Hatshepsut, which was part of the larger Deir el-Bahari complex, that felt far more isolated and barren to me than any other we have seen so far. The bleakness, the utter dryness, made this place seem remote even by Egyptian standards.
Returning to the ship for lunch, we finally set sail just before 1:00 PM. I sat on the sundeck for a bit, (though it was too windy to change into swim attire), then did some group yoga, as well as a short sprint on the treadmill and the “vibrating platter” (which by now was much easier to use than my first attempt).
I never could get used to the irony, seen everywhere from Luxor on South, of seeing houses made of mud bricks with thatch roofs all sporting satellite dishes. Evidently this is provided as a service by the government, but the pervasiveness of the scene never failed to amaze me.
We passed through locks south of Luxor, where we were “attacked” by the street sellers with the novel attempt of tossing the goods on to the boat so that we could see them up close, with an unwritten honor system that said we would toss them back if not interested in purchasing. (To be clear on this, we did not even ask for them to be thrown over, but were pelted nonetheless.) More than anybody else, the German women seemed to get into it. One of the “salesmen" politely said to me “Obama not a good man” after I tossed back one of his garbs. I would like to have had a chance to understand that better, but the boat was rising at that time in the lock.
For dinner, I wore my dark Armani Collezione (ironic I have to go on vacation to dress up, but that is a different story), and we were treated to a special Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve since the next night (Christmas Day) was to be our Egyptian Highlight dinner. After dinner, I took most of the group down and hosted drinks for them in the bar, with a vain attempt to convince them that it was a matter of national pride (us versus the Germans), but my traveling companions did not buy it, and they stopped after a single drink.
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