Luxor: Day 3: Valley of the Kings, Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, and Hanging Out

Posing in front of Queen Hatshepsut's Temple

Rachel posing next to Hathor, goddess of love

Wall painting with original colors (it's amazing that it has lasted so long)

An old photo of the temple 

An entrance into a tomb

The view from the upper part of the temple

View of the Nile and city from the roof of our hotel

and a view of the street from our window

The Nile

Haha, you can't play trumpets here! (really, you aren't allowed to  use the car horn)

Relaxing as we wait for our food at a little restaurant on the Nile

Tammy wrote all details of the trip in this cool black and white photo

The streets

Some farm land (there are lot's of farms in Egypt

A family in a small house along side the road

Yum, Chez Omar, where they serve tasty cuisine such as grilled pigeon  (we decided not to eat here)

Lights inside the souq area

A lovely black and white of your's truly 

Rachel and I between 2 massive statues

A closer look at Hatshepsut's temple

We had to take a ride to get from the car to the temple

An original tree that was planted during the time of Hatshepsut (it's only a stump now)

Luxor. It's very different from Cairo. Definitely much more green, with many farms and plants, and a bit nicer to look at as well. During our days in Luxor, we would be checking out the East and West Bank of the Nile. On day 3, we visited some temples. First, we went to the Valley of the Kings. I have included no pictures of the Valley of the Kings, because you are not allowed to take camera's anywhere in the valley, and especially not in the tombs of the kings. But, in the Valley of the Kings, we checked out many different tombs, some of which were on the smaller side, and some that were very large with many chambers. The cameras weren't allowed because the flash photography would ruin the colors inside the tombs. All of the colors were the original colors used when the tombs were being built thousands of years ago. It's really amazing that the color has lasted so long. When we finished at the Valley, we were then moving on the the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut. It was also nice to leave the Valley because the vendors and other people trying to see you everything under the sun were really starting to drive us crazy, and I was getting tired of every Egyptian man saying "nice tattoo" to me. I must have heard it at least 100 times during my trip.

So, Queen Hatshepsut. She was pretty darn cool, I must say. Hatshepsut was a master of disguise and deception. Because she wanted to be a ruler of Egypt, she disguised herself as a man, wearing all of the men's attire, and referred to herself as a man. Rarely is she called Queen. She ended up spending many years ruling Egypt disguised as a man. And, when other men attempted to take over, she made various plots in order to deceive them, and kill them. So, needless to say, she was pretty hardcore and awesome, so we really took a liking to her and her story. We explored the temple for about an hour, and then, we were once again ready to move on, but not because of the harassing vendors, but because it was blazing hot in the desert valley, and there was no where for us to really take shade once we left the coverage of the temple. One the drive back to our hotel, we visited to large statues that were off the side of the road, took a few pics and moved on. 

At the hotel, we took a refreshing dip in the pool, which had a lovely view of the Nile. We came back in, took a nap, and got ready to explore the area along the Nile (kind of like a boardwalk), in hopes of finding some tasty cuisine. We passed a restaurant called Chez Omar (pictured above), which served dishes such as pigeon. The man insisted that it was very delicious, but we felt a bit uneasy about the whole idea, so we decided to take our business elsewhere. We ended up at a nice little place along the Nile. The food took a long time, but that was ok with us since it gave us time to just sit around, relax, people watch, and take pictures. We enjoyed our food, and finished off with some ice cream before heading back to the hotel. We were completely exhausted from our first full day in Luxor, but looking forward to seeing what the next day would bring.