In the morning we visited the Valley of the Kings and the Hatshepsut Temple. The valley is home to the tombs of the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom. We visited the tombs of Ramses I, Ramses III and Ramses IV which are all very colorful painted. Most impressive was a ceiling painting in the tomb of Ramses IV showing a woman swallowing the sun. Especially famous is the tomb of Tutankhamun which we did not visit. The reason behind is that this tomb is only famous for being found intact meaning undiscovered by tomb raiders. Nowadays the tomb is empty anyhow since all artifacts are shown in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Therefore, it might not be worse to pay an additional 100 Egyptian Pounds (17 USD) to visit the tomb since Tutankhamun was a very young Pharaoh ruling only for a short period of time resulting in a small tomb without any color. To further limit the impact of tourism to the tombs cameras are not allow inside the valley anymore why I’m also not posting any pictures of the valley.

Hatshepsut was a female Pharaoh whose impressive temple we visited in the late morning (see today’s picture). We saw already many sculptures of Hatshepsut during our journey in Egypt always showing her as a powerful leader with a male appearance such as strong muscles and an artificial beard.

On the way back to the hostel we crossed the river Nile by motor boot and our guide was joking if I want to drive it. I took him by his word and said “Yes” resulting in me driving the motor boat for approx. five minutes. Since I never drove a motor boat before my driving style was quite insecure so I had to hand back the helm.

In the afternoon most of us were chilling out in the hostel getting mentally prepared for the desert adventure in Sudan. Tomorrow we’ll drive down to Aswan were we’ll stay for three nights before crossing by ferry into Sudan. If possible I’ll send another update from Aswan because once I enter Sudan I will most likely have no internet access for two to four weeks.