Egypt Trip: Wednesday

Valley of the Kings-
Valley of the Kings was by far one of my favorite things of the Egypt trip. In the latter dynasties of Egypt, the Pharaohs didn't have enough money to build pyramids like they used to, which really means they didn't have enough slaves, so they went to these mountains and instead of building pyramids they carved out chambers from the rocks and had tombs in the rocks. This is where they found King Tut. The crazy thing is that King Tut's treasures represent something like 60% of all the treasures from Egypt, but it is one of the smallest of the tombs and one of the smallest treasures of the Pharaohs. The only reason we have it is because he was so unknown that the grave robbers didn't find his tomb because another Pharaoh covered the entrance to his tomb when they were carving his out. My question is, who in the world has all this treasure in their attack? If it is in yours, let me know because I'll take some of that money. Anyway, we got to walk through all the tombs of all the Pharaohs that we have been learning about. It was really cool because we walked through the tombs of the Pharaohs that were in the Bible. There was this one tomb, Tutmoses III, that was a boiling hot sauna. I have never sweet so much in my life and it was instant. You know it is blasted hot when you walk out into over 100 degree weather and it feels cool! It was so awesome though, I would go back in a heartbeat.

Hatshepsut-
This was a really sweet temple that was near the valley of the kings. There is not much to explain about the temple. Pictures do much better, but while we were there we danced the Waka Waka again. Unfortunately I am too lazy to type out the story so I took this from my friend Tessa's blog. And she says (with minor changes) Shakira can heal the world. Our class has made a goal to do the Waka Waka dance at every location possible. We’re all convinced that this song not only has immense healing powers, but also will stand the test of time, thus we are all willing to make this our legacy. Unfortunately, we didn’t always know which sites were totally appropriate for “waka”ing. Turns out, Temple of Hatshepsut wasn’t one of them. We wired our radios to play it in everyone’s headsets and did our thing. The security guards didn’t like it very much, so they came running down the stairs to talk to our guide and confiscate the footage and take him to the police. Our wonderful guide, Islam, politely declined the guards and agreed to show the police the footage and insisted that it was harmless. As he put it, they were moving in rhythm together. But, it’s pretty rare that people accept the excuse of “we’re just stupid Americans who love to dance”. Islam, accompanied by the security guard, took the video to the police. He stopped, looked and Islam, and said, “That…is….awesome”. As my friend Brandt says, “Waka waka healed that security guards heart”. It was epic. You can be expecting a Waka Waka video montage sometime in the near future.

Colossus of Memnon- Pearl of Great Price
We got to see the place where the facsimiles and the mummies that the church bought that are now the facsimiles and the Pearl of Great Price for us now. You never really think about things like that, that it came from some physical place

Falukah/ Camels- Little kid dancing, driving
We took this thing called a Falukah which is like a really weird sailboat, to the other side of the Nile to go get on some camels. As we were riding down the Nile, the captains of the falukah put on some music. We had this really funny native kid that was helping him out on the boat that we got up to do a dance for us on a boat. We then hoped on some camels and had a 40 camel caravan winding through the countryside of Luxor. It was fun getting to see the country in Egypt and the little village areas. I was a little disappointed because I thought that we were going to get to ride them ourselves, but the people led us the whole time. I really wanted to have a camel race, but what can you do?

Suuq- Most fun night ever, confidence boost
That night we went to the Suuq, which is the market. It has been one of the most fun nights that I have had since I have been here in the Middle East. I thought that the people hassled you in the Old City in Jerusalem, but I was wrong. I have never seen people try to sell so diligently, and their tactics are quite funny. I have never had so many compliments that are not true but happy to take them. I was with a group of four girls. As we walked through the streets all the shop owners kept yelling out, "Lucky man, four wives, I give you 40 camels for one of them." I didn't think the price was quite right, but when I was offered a Ferrari and a helicopter, I was completely willing, but the girls just liked me too much to give me up ;) j/k Anyway, some of my other favorite compliments were, "4 wives? Strong man!" or "Diligent man". It was fun, but I probably needed the opposite of a confidence boost, maybe a humbling experience, but I'm not complaining!