9.20 This day was wonderful.
Valley of the Kings – This is where the Pharaohs of the Upper Kingdom were buried. We were given a ticket to King Tutankhamen’s tomb and another ticket that let us go in any three tombs of our choice. Tut’s tomb was by far the best because it hadn’t been looted like the other tombs. All of the paintings on the walls were as vibrant as they would have been thousands of years ago. There was also a climate-controlled glass box that had the actual mummy of Tutankhamen in it. Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to bring cameras but believe me, it was pretty awesome. The other tombs were much bigger (Tut wasn’t very important) but there was graffiti from the 1800’s on it and much of the paint had worn off. They were still really cool. I was lucky because my teacher had an extra ticket so I got to go into one extra tomb than everyone else.
Hatshepsut’s Monument – Queen Hatshepsut was the only female buried in the Valley of the Kings (there was a separate valley for queens). Everybody but her royal court thought she was a man. All of her statues and hieroglyphics depict her as a man. She had a large temple built into the mountain in the Valley of the Kings. It was very impressive. A side-note about Hatshepsut is that she kept her son, the rightful heir, imprisoned for most of his life. When she died, he got control of the throne and went around much of Egypt defacing her monuments.
After this, we went back to the hotel and had a sacrament meeting in our church clothes. It was really interesting because we were having church on Sunday instead of Saturday, and we were doing things just like normal except for the one hour we had sacrament. Later in the day we took a Felucca ride (pretty much a Nile riverboat) to the opposite side of the Nile.
The other class took their camel rides first. When we were waiting we hung out with some little local kids. I gave them all a piece of gum and they didn’t know was to do with it. The camel ride went through a local village and past some farms. My camel guide was named Muhammad. Pretty much all I learned from him is that he has never heard of Muse, my camel’s name was Casanova, and that his favorite song was some song off of the movie Titanic.
Later that night we decided to go out into the city. We took a carriage and told the guy to take us to the local market. He ended up taking us to this dumb tourist store where apparently all the carriage drivers go because they get a commission if we buy something. I was pretty mad about it but it was nice riding the carriage at night through the city along the Nile. Ok this is the end of the first four days. Stay tuned for the next four!
Another great day! Glad you were nice to the little kiddies!
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