A Luxor and Aswan Travel Diary
Amy Reid and Josh Moreton
All Images credit to Josh Moreton
One of us likes temples. The other… not so much.
Day 1: (Eventual) arrival in Aswan.
A word of advice to those who (inevitably) become gripped after reading this travel blog by a clawing, inescapable need to follow in our footsteps and visit for yourself this remarkable land of New Kingdom delights: it doesn’t matter whether you stick to our itinerary by the letter or strike out on your own. A trip starting in Luxor has just as many merits as one which heads to Aswan first. What is crucial, however, is making sure your hostel is booked in the same city that your flight will land. We didn’t. Negotiating transport between Luxor and Aswan at night: no bueno. But alas, we arrived. Tired and ready for bed. After a somewhat bleary-eyed check-in we wondered whether we were, in fact, still dozing away on the desert road caught in some strangely lucid dream. No, that really was a ten-year-old child who took our money and led us to our rooms. Cool. Day one.
Day 2: Raiki beads and rubble.
After the somewhat unforeseen shenanigans of our arrival (not totally unexpected; this is Egypt after all) we decided to take our first real day slowly. Waking to the ecstatic peace and quiet of an Egyptian town not yet completely overrun by urbanisation we spent a long morning sunning on the hostel roof and chatting to our fellow travellers. Some of the remarkable guests we encountered included a home friend of some of our Cairo classmates (it’s a small world), two lads who had recently managed to escape the start of the chaos in Khartoum (it’s a cruel world) and the most unironically gap yah guy I’ve ever seen in my life. You get the picture: wood instruments, bead bracelets, long hair and cultural appropriation. Easy to laugh, but he was absolutely lovely.
We managed to corral the troops and off we went to wander the (almost completely destroyed) temple complex on Elephantine Island. My highlight? Having trapsed over dozens of seemingly unconnected piles of rubble we spotted a row of signs to help explain what we saw around us. Great, let’s check it out. Right. They’re samples written in Lorem Ipsum.
Not the most informative temple visit of our trip.
After a beautiful evening with our new friends we headed to bed slightly early in anticipation of our 3.30 am wake up the next morning.
Day 3: Brits abroad complaining about Brits abroad…
Wake up, jump in the bus, back to sleep. Sorted. Today was the day I was most looking forward to. After four hours on the longest, straightest, desertiest road I’ve ever seen we arrived at Ramses II’s Abu Simbel temple complex. The temples were incredible. The setting on the shores of Lake Nasser, having incomprehensibly been dismantled, relocated and reconstructed in their entirety after the creation of the Aswan High Dam, this monument is a true testament to the enduring majesty of the King of Kings. The lowlight: seeing first-hand why Brits abroad have such a terrible reputation. Packs of them were waddling round, hissing and fussing. Abu Simbel’s allure of pharaonic magic is somewhat dampened by the behaviour of its visitors. I find it hard to understand what Geraldine is getting from the experience when she spends her entire visit viewing the temple through her grease-smeared phone screen. I wonder what the big man would think of the visitors to his shrine. Look upon my IPhones, ye Mighty, and despair…
Philae temple is another kettle of fish entirely. If you manage to successfully negotiate a reasonable price, withstanding the onslaught of threats to call the police for your impertinence (a tenner for our two minute boat trip was considered an insurmountable insult until it was actually fine), you approach this island complex by water, as if stepping back in time. Think pure Prince of Egypt. This temple alone really makes the whole trip - if you do nothing else in this country, go to Philae Temple and spend some time among the stillness of the ruins. Enough to stir even the most disinterested tourist.
Having really templed ourselves out in the hot African sun we headed back to the hostel for some well-earned food and rest. Playing some card games with the world’s most cartoon French man was the cherry on top of our first leg of the trip.
Day 4: Luxor; 3000 years of scamming tourists.
With three randomers we’d met in Aswan in tow, we set off (back) to Luxor. After a few days of the tranquil spirit and borderline biblical vistas in Aswan, the slightly manic energy of Luxor is a shock to the system. Everyone WILL try to scam you and make you pay 200LE for a watermelon. You must refuse. They are just on their grindset. Your ability to negotiate your way out of foreigner tax will be tested like never before, so come with your best masry demeanour and your firmest laa shukran. (‘No thanks, mate.)’
When we arrived and realised Google Maps was suggesting our hostel was located on a street which didn’t exist, I started to wonder why I forced myself to come out here when I've admittedly got very little fire in my loins for ancient ruins at the best of times. Luckily, someone had called the hostel to let them know some rather lost foreigners were wandering around and the owner very kindly came out to find us.
Luxor can feel a little overwhelming, dirty and hassly, but don’t let my sweeping and reductive generalisations stop you from enjoying this historic place. A mouth full of microplastics and getting your account cleaned out by a red stripe ATM is a small price to pay to be truly blown away by the Karnak and Luxor temples, as well as enjoying some of the amazing food you can get here. The street food is cheap, delicious, and seemingly on every single corner. Or, if you’d like something a little more upmarket, the restaurant Sofra is beautifully decorated and served us some of the tastiest Egyptian food we’ve tried since being here.
Day 5 - A breathless visit to the Valley of the Kings.
Day 5 saw us taking a tour around the Valley of the Kings, Madinet Habu, and Hatshepsut Temple, and potentially another temple but I honestly can’t be sure. At this point it had been 4 days of 39 degree heat and we weren’t holding up so well.
Despite being a tomb and temple sceptic I was honestly wowed by the Valley of the Kings. Artwork and inscription adorns the inside of every tomb and is in pretty fabulous condition. You will take in not only the splendour of a 3,000-year-old civilisation but also the breath of 3,000 panting tourists. Yeah, it’s pretty steamy in there.
Day 6 : A load of hot air
For the last day of our sojourn, we decided to push the boat out. Although it was one of the priciest elements of our trip, an early morning hot air balloon took us right over the Valley of the Kings at sunrise and was pretty unmissable. After an early rise and three different vehicles, we trusted that the reasonably-sized tear we spotted in the balloon was just an Egyptian engineering technique we didn’t understand and climbed on in.
Never have we been so fervently pursued for tips. We were even called on the way home by the man who gave us a 30-second health and safety briefing asking us where we were, and could we please get off the bus and return to pay him his dues. Luckily, the beauty and novelty of the experience is enough to outweigh the absolute grief you will endure from every single man involved in this Phinneas Fogg-esque voyage. Resist the urge to tell them to Fogg off, unfortunately it’s just part of their gig.
CRUCIAL ADVICE:
1). Bring your camcard - student ID gets you half off every entry ticket.
2). Know you will be scammed and make peace with this but know the severity to which you are fleeced is in YOUR control.
3). Speak Arabic - it’s the only chance you’re going to have to avoid the worst of the scams. If you don’t know how… try?
4) Hostels are great round here - staying of the beaten path of the river cruises is a great way to stay in budget.
The only thing left to be said about this incredible place is that if you get a opportunity to visit, don’t turn it down. If nothing else, the more tourists, the smaller the chance you’ll get hassled.