43 Degrees

Today was the hottest of our days here in Upper Egypt. We visited the Valley of the Kings, Hatshepsut’s temple, the Valley of the Queens and the Collosi of Memni. It was so hot ! The tombs were all amazing – with lots of art, still in colour – beautiful, despite having been raided of all their treasures hundreds, in some cases thousands of years ago. We got to see two mummies – a five month old baby whose mother miscarried from grief when her pharoah husband died, and the highlight of the day – Tutankhamen ! He was very brown and shrivelled, and 1.5 meters long. We will see the golden mask on Thursday at the museum in Cairo.
We bought some cotton scarves today. We had another one of those situations where we suddenly turned up at an alabaster factory where they ‘show you how alabaster ware is made’ but really it’s an excuse to put the very heavy sell on you, and try to get you to buy stuff. We resisted. We even resisted these absolutely gorgeous pale alabaster pots that would make brilliant little tealittle lamps, because the alabaster is transparent. We resisted. I was weak, Rachel was strong – she won. No purchase.
We have grown accustomed to saying ‘No’. Honestly – nobody offers anything here without expecting payment. Some of the tombs were really hot – Tutmoses’, for instance, or Seti’s, but do not take the old bits of cardboard the old men offer – you’ll have to pay. At Hatshepsut’s temple, the little train driver invited Hugo to sit in the front. Of course we had to pay at the end. Extra, I mean.
The funniest thing all day was when we came back to our hotel to find that the housekeeping staff had constructed a person on Hugo’s bed out of towels, clothes, scrunched-up toilet tissue for curvy bits and sunglasses.