Day Three

Our first night in Luxor was the most relaxing of the trip and we were all able to get some good sleep before starting our next big day--Luxor's west bank. We commissioned our driver from the previous day to pick us up and take us around the sites for the day and we are lucky that he turned out to be a cool guy because we forgot the diaper bag at the hotel and didn't realize it until we arrived at the Valley of the Kings. He went to a nearby convenience store to get us a supply of diapers, but we also remembered that our camera was in that bag. Fortunately, Ahmed's sister had her camera so we were still able to get some shots.

Huge rocks were removed from these mountains and then shipped to the other side of the Nile. It's amazing what the ancient Egyptians were capable of.

The whole valley is peppered with these tombs, several small ones like this, almost unnoticeable like these and other more  significant ones, like King Tut's which we weren't allowed to photograph
 

We did a lot of walking and it was really hot. We were here on December 25th and it was at least 90 degrees. The last stop in the Valley of the Kings was the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut.

Many of the ornamental carvings still retain the original color

There were two of these tress brought from Somalia and planted here as part of the Temple

We toured a few more less popular sites before heading to a restaurant in town. The place was recommended by our driver and we're pretty sure he gets some kind of commission for bringing tourists there, but the food was as good as he said it was so it was worth the higher-than-normal price. We then spotted a little place to get drinks and stopped in before heading to the hotel.

Karim got sick and spewed on me and that was our cue to head back to the hotel and get ourselves in bed.