Al Qurnah

Miles: 3.8 Steps: 9001 Flights: 14

We had the earliest wake up call yet for the trip - 2:30am! We had to head out early for our hot air balloon ride over Luxor, Egypt!! It was a bit of a journey - left our boat, short van ride to a small ferry, to another police escorted “convoy” of balloon vans to get to the take off point. Not sure why we needed the police escort, but we’ll take it.

What was especially exciting was we were making history. Today our group was going to be in the largest basket ever used in Egypt - would hold 32 people. They are used elsewhere in the world all the time - but never Egypt. National Geographic was there filming all the preparations and the flight!!

Unfortunately shortly after we got there, they halted preparations because the winds were picking up. We waited about an hour, and then they canceled the flights for the day. 😢 Egypt hasn’t had the best safety rating for hot air ballooning - there have been some terrible accidents and many deaths here, especially back when the pilots determined if it was safe or not to fly. Now the air traffic control at the airport determines whether they fly that day and so things have gotten much safer. Regardless, we were very bummed. They rescheduled us for tomorrow morning, but around 4:00pm they called and canceled it as well. We’re not here any more days so no ability to keep trying - maybe we’ll try again at our next destinations? Really sad, but glad they care about our safety first.

We continued touring sites - headed to the Temple of Hatshepsut which was an amazing sight. I was more enthralled with the limestone cliffs. She was a a woman who reigned over Egypt for 21 years, who pretended to be a man.

Then we went to the Valley of the Kings - the tombs of over 65 pharaohs of Egypt! They were built hidden, into this hillside far from the cities to prevent tomb robbers. We were allowed to pick 3 tombs to visit, and only allowed to stay 10 min in each. It was 10 min too long as it was sooooo hot and humid inside them. I don’t even know how hot it was inside. But when we exited to the 109° outside, it felt cool and refreshing. 🤷‍♀️ just wrong - Crazy.

Our last site for the day was an alabaster shop. Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving. We watched a short demonstration of how they made vases and such.

And then like that the cruise was over! We booked a hotel room across the river on the West Bank (less touristy section of Luxor) for a couple nights. Our plan is to recuperate a bit after all these early morning wake-ups and marathon temple visits. We’re pretty exhausted.Read more

Merenptah was the son of Ramses II. Many ancient texts were found in his tomb such as the Book of the Dead. This was usually a papyrus scroll that was part of the funeral procedures that details magic spells written in hieroglyphics and used to assist the dead into the afterlife. They were written by many priests over 1000 years.Read more