Greatest antiquity, and all that
After the week of conferences and whatnot in Ain Sokhna, my immediate boss, a Dutch colleague, and a friend of the boss all took the sleeper train down to Luxor in Upper Egypt.
Let me explain. Upper Egypt is actually southern Egypt, as in, further inland. It's called Upper Egypt because it's up the Nile from Cairo. Luxor, of course, was once the religious and political capital of the Egyptian Empire; the Valley of the Kings is there, as well as some incredible temples and a lovely little museum. For more, I refer you to Wikipedia.
Anyway, as I said, we took the sleeper train, which was awesome. I mean, it was not the most comfortable night's sleep of my life, but I still felt like I was in an old whodunit murder mystery. A cute little old man showed up and folded the beds down (it was MAGIC suddenly instead of a couch we had BUNK BEDS), we went to sleep, and when we woke up we were in Luxor. Loves it. We stayed in a lovely little hotel called Nefertiti, which was both wonderful and cheap (70 LE! That's, like, $11.50!) with a rooftop terrace and courtyard restaurant. AW YEAH.
Since we arrived at approximately ass o clock AM, we spent the day touring. We went to Qarnaq, the museum, and the Luqsor temple, after which we were exhausted enough for a herd of cattle. Here are a couple more pictures, because I mean come ON:
There will be more later.
ANYWAY. We spent a relaxing evening smoking shisha in the hotel, and the next day went to the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and an alabaster workshop where a toothless man insisted on giving me chunks of rocks. We then took the train further south, up the Nile to a little town called Derawa. That is where things got REALLY interesting (if you ask me), so I think I'll give it its own post.
Coming soon: ill-advised antics with pickup trucks! Artificial lakes! MOAR SLEEPER TRAIN!