To be continued...

Pyramids in the background

So here we are, sitting in Cairo airport waiting for our flight back to London.  We’ll have about 2 and a half days in London before heading back to NZ, where we have a little under 2 weeks before we head to Buenos Aires.  

It’s a little surreal to end the trip, after 4 months and over 17,900km through Africa, it is hard to believe that this chapter of our lives has ended.  We said goodbye to a number of friends and our great tour guides Andi and Grant.  Hopefully we will get to catch up with a lot of our friends when we make it back to the UK next year in Feb/Mar.  

Our last week in Egypt involved hot air ballooning in Luxor, a visit to the Valley of the Kings, a few more temples, our only break down on the very last drive, the Pyramids and the Sphinx.  

Our balloon flight was magical.  Neither of us have flown on a hot air balloon before, but the experience is highly exciting, even as the balloon is initially inflated.  Like a dragons breath, 3 or 4 metre long horizontal jets of fire steam into the balloon with the assistance of about a few industrial sized fans. Once it is nearly inflated, the balloon which had been laid on the ground rights itself, and in the case of our balloon, almost tips right over to the other side.  Once the stability issues were sorted, some 20 or so people are hustled onto the balloon, into these tiny compartments to keep us from moving around and disturbing the weight balance.  The balloon rose effortlessly and gently from the ground and hovered mostly over the Valley of the Nobles (very near the Valley of the Kings) descending and rising at the whim of the pilot (at one point it felt we descended to within 10 metres of the ground).  The breeze was incredibly gentle, and even after a full hour in the air, we barely drifted more than a couple of kilometres gently landing in a recently plowed field!  

Inflating the balloon

From there we jumped onto a bus and drove out to the Valley of the Kings.  Nestled inbetween a series of mountains, the thinking behind constructing tombs in a hidden valley was to protect Pharaohs tombs, their treasure and their mummies from grave robbers (having worked out that the previous method of constructing massive pyramids attracted rather than put off grave robbers).  There are over 60 tombs that have been uncovered with most available to be explored (although your entrance ticket only permits the visit of 3 tombs at your selection - fortunately our guide directed us to 3 of the more impressive and visiting 3 tombs felt like enough).  The tombs themselves begin to be constructed upon the coronation of the Pharaoh and end with his death.  Accordingly, the longer the reign the bigger the tomb.  Supposedly the Pharaohs were all buried with their treasures (in a belief that these items would be available to them in the afterlife).  Only one tomb, that of Tutankhamun, was ever found to have treasures inside (including a 110kg coffin of pure gold! - available to be viewed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo) which is why that Pharaoh is famous - however he was not notable for anything else - his reign was short (about 10 years) and he died at the age of 19.  As it was explained to us, the tombs themselves have had limited restoration works conducted on them.  When we consider the age of the tombs (3000 to 4000 years old) with the remarkably impressive condition of the tomb, its carvings and paintings inside, we can’t help but to be awed!  Regrettably photography is not allowed at all - we couldn’t even bring our camera past the ticket office, so we are not able to directly share the impressiveness of these tombs, but we can say that the Valley of the Kings is awe-inspiring and well worth a visit.  

After an hour or so going through 3 tombs at the Valley of the Kings, it was a short drive to the other side of the mountain to visit the village and tombs of the works who dug the tombs.  The workers, whom the Pharaohs were highly reliant to write the correct incantations inside their tombs (to ensure a smooth passage to the afterlife), were well paid and afforded significant amounts of holiday on an annual basis, but were not allowed outside of their village for fear of letting robbers know the locations of the tombs.  As such, the workers would spend their free time and money digging their own burial tombs and adorning them with their own paintings.  

Hapshetsut's temple

Before leaving Luxor we also swung by Queen Hapshetsut’s temple (near the Valley of the Kings) and Karnak temple.  Hapshetsut’s temple has had significant reconstruction work undertaken on it but, located next to a sheer cliff face and spread over 3 levels, is vast and impressive. Karnak temple is absolutely massive and one of the most impressive temples in the whole of Egypt. It is spread over acres and acres of prime land in central Luxor and really brings home the magnificence and intellectual supremacy of the ancient egyptians.  One can only marvel at the size of, and weight of the massive stone structures that were erected almost 3000 years ago over 20 metres into the air.  Although the temple has had to be largely reconstructed - one could spend hours and hours walking around the various courtyards and room, marveling at the statues and sheer size of the temple.  After a full day that had started at 4am, we could only manage a little over an hour before the heat and general exhaustion took over.

Karnak temple

Karnak temple

Restoration work awaiting (Karnak temple)

It will look a little like this once reconstructed (Karnak)

We left Luxor for our final drive to Cairo the following morning at 7am.  Everyone was in a bouyant mood - excited about reaching the final destination and the achievement of making it.  Unfortunately after about 3 hours on the road the truck had its one and only break down.  Having already travelled over 40,000km since leaving London late last year, travelling across some of the world’s worst roads and harshest climates, perhaps it was the truck’s way of saying “don’t go”??  Anyway, without getting in to all the technicalities of what actually went wrong (as my understanding is rather limited), basically we needed a rather rare tool to repair the truck which we didn’t have and the people who we were ringing also didn’t seem to have.  This all meant that it looked like we weren’t going to finish the journey on the truck, but instead on a chartered bus or perhaps the night train.  As the reality of our position was sinking in and general disappointment at not being able to finish on the truck was beginning to take hold a ute pulls into the driveway where we had parked the truck with, lo-and-behold, the tool we needed!  This bizarre happenstance was nothing short of a miracle.  Literally the only vehicle to pull into the driveway had the very rare tool we required in its rear cab - and - it worked!  

A few hours later the truck was all good to go again and we resumed our journey.  We drove until sunset and pitched our tents for the final time in an Egyptian quarry.  

The final drive into Cairo was a picturesque drive along the Red Sea coast - from about 200km out of Cairo there have been an explosion of holiday (time share?) resorts which are all in their final stages of completion.  Relative to the countries we had travelled through, Egypt is leagues ahead, notwithstanding the corruption of the Mubarak regime.  

Cairo had one last African experience to offer us.  Only shortly after joining the motorway into the city we ran into a traffic jam caused by an overturned car engulfed in flames.  The traffic jam caused some people to turn their car around and head against the traffic back to the last offramp - others parked up to help throw sand on the fire (a technique which was ineffectual and probably quite dangerous for those participating).  

Our final day of the trip involved a trip to the Egyptian museum in the morning followed by the Pyramids and the Sphinx.  We had thought to experience thousands upon thousands of people and hundreds of locals aggressively hawking their souvenirs.  Luckily for us, the Pyramids and Sphinx were very quiet, perhaps only 100 or 200 people, and the souvenirs salespeople were appropriately limited (and a lot less pushy than other places and what we had expected - perhaps a result of judicious tourism police).  The world famous landmarks were just as impressive as we had expected and photos and video we had previously seen led us to believe.  When we consider that 10’s of millions of blocks each weighing between 2 and 15 tonnes a piece were constructed into pyramids that have remained standing for close to 5,000 years it is hard not to be impressed and those desert wonders were a fantastic way to finish the trip.  

We hope you will continue to read our blog as we travel through South America.