Luxor, Egypt

When visiting the ancient tombs on the West Bank of the Nile, we first to Hatshepsut's Temple and then hiked over the Theban hills into the Valley of the Kings. The hike was probably the best part of the whole day as from the top you could see on one side the Nile and its green fertile bank receding into stark yellow dessert, and on the other side a full few looking down into the Valley of the Kings.

All of the tombs we visited were very impressive. It is amazing the effort that the ancient Egyptians went to conceal their deceased and bury them with all their riches. One of the visitor’s centers had a great 3D perspective model of the hills and how the enclosed tombs snaked around. Most impressive was watching the sun set against the huge pavilion walls at Medinet Habu. The architecture of these massive walls encircled with huge columns were built to last multiple lifetimes.

We sampled some of the local delicacies including stuffed pigeon, but were more impressed with how green the fava bean falafels were!

Luxor has a fun network of mini bus routes that go all around the city. We hoped on the blue route out to Karnak Temple where there were so many different things to do and see including the tallest surviving ancient obelisk on Earth and three amazingly life like statues!

We also spent a day outside of the tourist sites riding bikes through the countryside where most children would run behind us with huge smiles. The highlight was having what seemed like an entire school of 30-40 kids swarming us from all sides. The low point was getting harassed by some older kids for backsheesh and having rocks thrown at us when we refused. For anyone who thinks they have it bad with traffic, take a look at this video of us crossing an intersection for a different perspective: