I am the world’s original scaredy cat and quite reluctant to do anything remotely daring or adventurous.

Going in a hot air balloon was the last thing on my mind but since I was among the minority ( the only one actually) who was too chicken to go, I decided to go with the flow.

And I’m glad I did because it turned out to be the highlight of our Egyptian holiday. Balloon rides begin near the Valley of the Kings and Queens and it takes about an hour to get there. So we opted for a later balloon flight because we didn’t want to wake up at 3.a.m to make the sunrise fight.

In semi-darkness we went gingerly down the gangway and got into our van for a short ride to the boat that took us to the Eastern bank of the river Nile.

Once there, I began having second thoughts since getting in to the balloon basket seemed quite complicated. Where was the gate? I thought to myself as I spotted two notches on the side of each section, which we had to use to clamber in. I did manage though and was quite pleased with my agility and ability to overcome the first hurdle.

Now I had to face the butterflies in my tummy that would accompany the ascent. But wait! What happened? By the time I finished listening to the Captain’s welcome address, we had already left mother earth below us.

What a spectacular view it was. And what a wondrous feeling it was to be up in the sky Below us there was a new excavation going on with workers getting an early start to get the numbered pieces in place. It turned out to be a new find of the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III.

Surprisingly, my fear and apprehension just vanished and I actually enjoyed being up in the sky but we had to get down as rides were limited to just two in the day and only for 45 minutes each.

We met up with Ahmad at the Ali Baba Cafe which turned out to be remarkably nice for a restaurant in the middle of what seemed like nowhere, situated as it was in front of two colossal statues known as the Colossi of Memnon.

The Valley of the Kings

After a quick breakfast that was packed for us by the cruise ship, we made our way to the Valley of Kings to see the much awaited mummy of King TutAnkhAmun.

The tomb was one of the tombs which had all the artifacts intact and would have remained so had it not been for accidental discovery of the water carrier during the dig of Howard Carter an English archeologist. It seems that this young lad was digging a hole to balance the pitcher of water and came upon the first step of what turned out to be the staircase to the intact chamber ofTutAnkhAmun’s tomb!

This discovery led to the discovery of several other tombs and is yet another UNESCO World Heritage site. It is beautifully maintained with a museum in the complex and has golf carts to ferry passengers and well maintained pathways. Inside the tombs, the walkways were well made and passages well lit.

The Valley of Kings has around 52 tombs and it is quite difficult to see all of them at one go. So we just saw two tombs before going on to see the Valley of Queens on the other side.

The guide pointed out to the mountains in which the tombs were made. They were natural pyramids!

Did the later Pharaohs become lazy too lazy to construct Pyramids? Or were they just too practical and made them in mountains to prevent tomb raiders from destroying their after life homes?

The Valley of the Queens

There are many nobles and queens buried in the Valley of Queens but we were more interested in the mortuary temple of Egypt’s famous female Pharaoh. Hatshespsut . She was the only Royal descendent of King Thutmose I so she married her half brother Thutmose II who was born of a secondary queen. Thutmose II died leaving a son born of another secondary wife so Hatshepsut ruled on behalf of her stepson Thutmose III.  Hatshespsut was a powerful ruler and was depicted as a male with the false beard in all her images but traces of her rule were almost wiped out by her stepson Thutmose III who immediately over threw her once he came of age.

The funerary temple was another grand two storied structure with traces of painted ceilings and walls.

The Karnak Temple

The true grandeur of ancient Egypt is only apparent when you see the temple of Karnak with its tall columns, obelisks and the grand avenue linking it to the Temple of Luxor.

These two temples must have indeed been imposing and majestic in their hey day. Unfortunately, it was not only high noon and too hot to really wander around the temple complex, but we also had to make our way to the airport to catch the flight back to Cairo. So we had to make another rushed visit through this temple which is still being reconstructed.

No flight to Cairo

Finally, after a quick lunch at McDonald’s overlooking Luxor Temple, we made our way to Luxor International Airport.

Ahmad was in a rush and didn’t even look back once he dropped us off at the airport . Of course, this is normal at normal times but we found ourselves unable to even enter the airport as the guard told us that our flight was cancelled! With great difficulty we contacted our Egyptian tour operator and managed to convince him to let us sit inside.

Our original 1.30 flight would now be taking off at 7! This put paid to our plans of seeing the Son-et-Lumiere show at Giza. It also put paid to our plans of having a grand Egyptian meal .
By the time we reached our hotel all catering service was closed so we asked Tifa ( terribly late again this time) to arrange for some Shawarma. I have to admit this was the first time ever I’d eaten a Shawarma and was pretty much hooked.

Too tired to think, we collapsed into bed hoping that there wouldn’t be any hiccups the next day.