Deir el-Bahri

The next morning, I awoke and greeted Saber. He was waiting for me and we both went outside to head back to the city center as I had a tour to explore a lot of Luxor's major sites. We stopped by to get breakfast, and even though I had pleaded, he still paid for my breakfast, delicious bread with vegetables inside. I dropped by the docks and got on his felucca, where he made some tea. It was a good way to start the morning, he also offered his boat's storage compartment so I can store my bag in his boat while I toured so it wouldn't hinder me too much. All of that without even asking for baksheesh.

I waited in front of Luxor hotel, the meeting place I set up and soon the tour van came. I jumped inside and sat on the back, most of them were Chinese tourists but there was a white young guy sitting with me at the back. We weren't really talking, our first stop was the Valley of Kings, I tried to use my student ID for a discount and got it luckily. There were 3 tombs we were able to dive in to, the hieroglyphics and just how ancient they were enough to make me marvel at them. The inside were strictly no pictures, and there were "guards" lurking about checking the phones of tourists. People took pictures and sometimes they got away with it, sometimes they don't. Anyways, I was both the former and the latter. In the first 2 tombs, I got some nice photos, but the last one, a guy approached me and asked to check my phone. He saw some photos and counted them and asked for 20 pounds for each photo. I offered to delete it but he wasn't having it so I tried to stall as much as possible and just told him to meet my tour guide instead, so I dragged him all the way up as he offered me to pay him less, but I just climbed all the way up the tomb. At least, he had to work for it. My tour guide and the guy started to argue and I paid him off with just 20 pounds. The pics weren't even that good, to be honest.

Our next stop was the Temple of Hatshepsut, that temple was really dope and beautiful with such intricate architecture with a mountain looming behind. I started talking to the guy I was sitting with in the back, Mitch. He caught on that I was using an old student ID. After the temple, we visited the Colossi of Memnon, and then a souvenir store and watched some people perform a musical number. We had a lunch buffet and then stopped by a hotel lobby to chill for a bit, which was quite odd for the tour but it allowed us to escape from the heat. Mitch and I talked a lot here, talking about our own adventures and trading life stories.

Our last two stops for the day was Karnak temple and Luxor temple, both amazing places with these carved columns and having a mix of both Christianity, Islam and ancient Egypt. We explored the place and helped take pictures of each other, we went to some hidden places and ran away when we got caught cuz we knew they would be asking for money. It was fun, jumping across scaffoldings and going through a labyrinth of walls. After the tour, we opted to just say good bye and go off on our own without getting transported back. We stopped by McDonald's to get some frozen treats, getting offered hash by a random street peddler on the way. I invited Mitch to stop by Saber's felucca and he agreed. We spent the remaining of the afternoon sipping tea while watching the scarlet sun set across the Nile. It was a moment. Mitch said good bye and I also had to start getting ready as I had to catch my night bus that night going back to Cairo. Saber, being Saber still paid for my transportation on the way back to his place so I could take a shower, and bought me dinner for the road ahead. We ate on the street while talking about his faith. I wished him well and left for the bus terminal. It was fun waiting for the bus, as I had no goals and just had to relax. I got on the bus and got ready to sleep.Read more