Luxor and the Valley of the Kings

 The pyramids were not enough.

Their horseback rides around the Great Pyramids of Giza and the Step Pyramid of Saqqara had only whetted their appetites. Tom and Jim set their sights farther south, toward ancient Thebes—modern Luxor—and the Valley of the Kings.

Although they were both experienced hitchhikers by now, the unrelenting sun, scorching heat,

and healthy concern about hitchhiking in a country so different from any they had traveled in persuaded the boys to opt for a train. They also opted for seats in the air-conditioned first-class compartment instead of the crowded and—as evidenced by all the open windows—unair-conditioned second-class cars. At $7 a seat, this decision was a definite budget-buster. But any concern dissipated quickly when they were shown to their comfortable seats and, even before the train left the station, a generous serving of chicken and rice was placed in front of them. They exchanged astonished glances. The portions were enormous, and the aroma alone made the splurge seem worthwhile.

Suddenly, someone knocked on the window beside Jim’s seat. On the platform, a group of young boys stood with their hands clasped as if in prayer, shouting words he could not hear. Some gestured for him to lower the window. One of the boys had a stump for a hand, another was missing a nose. He and Tom now realized that they were looking at a group of lepers, the first time either of them had seen the ravages of this horrible disease. They sat frozen, forks in hands. To start eating in front of these poor boys felt wrong. Even after a porter on the platform chased them away, it wasn’t until the train pulled out of the station that they took their first forkfuls.  

Tom read from his trusty guidebook that Herodotus called Egypt "the gift of the Nile." From the train window it was easy to see why. The fertile green ribbon carved by the river was surprisingly narrow in parts, with desert pressing in on both sides. For thousands of years, the Nile's annual flooding transformed this strip of land into one of the great cradles of civilization.

The boys sat back and took in the view. Men guided oxen through the fields behind wooden plows. Water was still lifted by hand. Mud-brick homes baked beneath the sun. Donkeys pulled wagons toward market while graceful dhows drifted across the river. Women dressed in flowing black robes worked in the fields as men lingered over tea outside village cafés. Tom scribbled in his journal:

"Timelessness. Slower life, so rich and meaningful. People doing these same things for centuries. Such simple activity, yet so powerful."

Jim's fuzzy shot of The Nile and its Ribbon of Green, taken from a ridge near the Valley of the Kings

The ride was so comfortable that they were almost disappointed to reach Luxor. But the disappointment didn’t last long. Located on the site of Ancient Thebes—capital of the Egyptian Empire for nearly a thousand years—Luxor was everything Cairo wasn't. Smaller, calmer, and infinitely more manageable. Outside the station, a boy of about 10 emerged from the tangle of bicycles, battered taxis, donkey carts, and horse-drawn carriages and handed Tom a hotel card while citing its virtues using, they guessed, all the English the boy knew: Clean very clean, cheap very cheap, come with me, sir, you like. His sales pitch worked partly because, according to Jim, the kid was the absolute personification of Oliver Twist. Or maybe the Artful Dodger.

The town came alive as the sun went down and the worst of the day’s heat eased. The energy could be felt in the smoky kebab stands, the tiny shops that crowded against each other, the cafes filled with (primarily) men playing board games while sipping tea, and the families that strolled through it all at a relaxed pace. Many younger Egyptians wore loose, pajama-like clothing perfectly suited for the relentless summer temperatures. Combined with the unpaved streets, horse carts, and warm hospitality, Luxor possessed the relaxed energy of a frontier town.

The next day, the boys made their way to Amun-Re at Karnak, which elicited from Tom several impressions of Ed McMahon introducing Johnny Carson as “Karnak the Magnificent.” But what was truly magnificent was what the next several hours brought, starting with the Avenue of Ram-headed Sphinxes, then on to the Great Hypostyle Hall and its 134 towering columns, many nearly seventy feet high, supporting what had once been one of the greatest religious structures on the planet. Even after four thousand years, traces of brilliant paint and finely carved hieroglyphics could be seen. Standing beneath those colossal columns, the Overlanders found themselves marveling at what the ancient Egyptians had accomplished four millennia earlier. Every wall, every carving, every massive block of stone had been shaped by hand. No power tools. No cranes. No heavy equipment.

Temple at Karnak

The afternoon heat was sapping their energy, so they decided to see if they’d get kicked off the verandah of the glamorous Luxor Hotel on account of their decidedly unglamorous backpacker attire. They were relieved to be welcomed graciously and spent several hours under a gently turning ceiling fan, sipping lemonade, and watching feluccas sail by on the Nile.

Feluccas on the Nile

The goal for the next day was to cross the Nile and visit the Valley of the Kings to pay their respects at the tombs of a couple of ancient-Egypt rock stars, Tutankhamun and Ramesses II. Another young entrepreneur ferried them across the river in a tiny, uncomfortably rickety boat, where we met a man who offered to take them to their destination via donkey.

“Best way,” the man said. “You never forget.”

He was right.

After riding through some carefully cultivated fields, the trio and their donkeys started the long, slow climb up into the Thebian Hills. The trail grew narrower and narrower as the donkeys navigated increasingly steep desert ridges. Jim looked down at one point and felt his stomach plummet when he saw how close his ass (both of them) were to the edge of the ridge.

Jim risked life and limb by taking this shot, atop a smarter ass than he, on a trail high above the Temple of Hatshepset

Fortunately, the donkey was calm and sure-footed. When not weighing the odds of a misstep sending them into eternity, Tom and Jim had plenty of time to appreciate the silence, acclimate to the heat, and marvel at the fact that kings, queens, and travelers of every description had traveled this route for thousands of years.

Tom with guide, the Nile in the background.

By the time they dismounted at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings, however, the only thing on their minds was not finding the tombs of the pharaohs but finding an ice-cold Coca-Cola.

Only after quenching their thirst, courtesy of a man with a picnic cooler that seemed way out of place, did they begin descending into the tombs. In each of the ones they visited, steep stairways took them underground into narrow passageways lined with remarkably preserved paintings and hieroglyphics. They passed by numerous empty rooms before finally reaching the burial chamber, which typically featured a massive stone sarcophagus within brilliantly colored walls depicting gods, kings, and the promise of eternal life. Tom wondered how Howard Carter must have felt when he discovered the intact tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922—not all that long ago, given the enormous span of history.

Entrance to Tutankhamun's tomb

After the tombs, Tom and Jim visited the nearby Temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari. Rising in graceful terraces against towering limestone cliffs, its clean geometric lines contrasted dramatically with the hidden tombs carved into the surrounding mountains. 

The Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut

Colossi of Memnon

Their final stop in the Valley was the Colossi of Memnon, two enormous, 40-foot-high statues of a seated Amenhotep III, who had been watching over the Nile Valley for more than three thousand years. Ancient visitors claimed the statues sang at sunrise after an earthquake cracked one of them. Tom and Jim heard no music that day, but they were delighted to discover graffiti left centuries earlier by none other than the Roman emperors Hadrian and Septimius Severus.

Evening was approaching, so it was time to get back on the donkeys, reverse their route back to the eastern bank of the Nile and to Cairo for the next leg of their journey. This time, though, instead of splurging (again) on first-class train tickets, they purchased second-class tickets. Jim reasoned that because the 10-12-hour ride would be at night, the heat would not be so oppressive.

He was wrong.

The carriage overflowed with passengers. Hawkers squeezed through impenetrable crowds selling tea, biscuits, and chocolate. With no seats available, Tom and Jim spent much of the night on the grimy floor near the toilets while curious Egyptians looked on with amused expressions. Few Western travelers ventured into second-class unreserved compartments. At one point, needing fresh air, Jim opened one of the wide doors and sat there gulping in air. After a while, someone would close it and yell something at Jim that Jim, of course, didn’t understand. He would open the door again, someone else would close it again, and again yell something at Jim. Jim preferred the reprimand to the suffocating heat and stench.

It was one of the most difficult but also memorable train rides they had taken thus far. Looking back on it now, they remember how the moon was reflected on the Nile, and the families gathered around small fires all along the river, and the strange satisfaction that comes from surviving something miserable while you're young enough to think it's an adventure. And little did they know there’d be an even more stressful ride. This one in an entirely different desert.

Dawn brought Cairo. The boys eagerly jumped off the train, and soon thereafter headed to the airport. Somewhere along the line, probably over beer at the Cairo Hilton or lemonade on the Hotel Luxor’s verandah, the Overlanders decided to visit another ancient land: Israel.

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Jim, exhausted but happy to be off that train and back in Cairo

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That was Then. Click on the video for the Overlanders Now reflections on Luxor and the Valley of the Kings.

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