We woke up around 5:45am, Jives seemed to be feeling a bit better after his heatstroke the day before. I made a caramel nescafe with the packages I had bought the night before from the super friendly corner store. We took it easy and went down for breakfast a few hours later. Breakfast was indescribably good, but I will try my best to describe it! Breakfast was included with our stay, and consisted of a huge banquet room FULL of options: falafels, tomatoes with cheese, veggies prepared every way, an entire counter of dips and hummus, an entire counter of cheese and sliced meats, a huge selections of olives, pickles and every food preservable in vinegar and oil. There was an omelette bar, a huge selection of breads, buns, flatbreads, pastries and jams and spreads. A large assortment of every juice imaginable, many couscous dishes, eggs prepared every way and the traditional selection of cereals. I filled my plate up, but there was so much more I wanted to try. We grabbed coffee and went outside to the patio to eat. 

After filling ourselves up to the maximum, and leaving many things to try the next day, we returned to our room to research the best way and prices to get to the Valley of the Kings. We decided to take a taxi to the ferry (10-40 EGP) and then take the ferry across to the West Bank of Luxor for about 4 EGP before then taking another taxi to the Valley for about 250 EGP…. but that didn’t happen. Jives negotiated with a driver to take us to the ferry, but he sort of refused. Eventually he agreed to 350 EGP to take us all the way to the Valley of the Kings, but as we walked to his car the price went up to 600 EGP. He did drop the price to 500, but at that point we didn’t trust him to stick to his price, so we walked away. He followed us for quite a few blocks saying we had an agreement, it was really unpleasant. 

A few blocks further, another driver pulled up beside us and asked where we were going. The driver agreed to drive us to the ferry for 30 EGP so we got in. We then asked how much to drive us all the way to the Valley of the Kings and back, and he said 300 EGP, so we agreed. We honestly found a really nice cab driver, and we stuck with him for the rest of our time in Luxor (even giving him a big tip at the end). 

The drive to the bridge that would take us to the West Bank was really interesting. We drove by a lot of derelict buildings, fields and traditional irrigation systems and canals. The drive took about 30 minutes and with the windows down, the temperature was just perfect (it was not as hot as the day before where we had melted in the 50C heat). We drove by some really impressive Coloseusses and the tombs of the Nobles, tiny burial chambers carved into the cliff faces, like small huts.

The landscape was like another planet, so dry and mountainous, sandy and blindingly bright. 

We arrived at the Valley of the Kings and our guide parked, saying he would wait one- three hours, whatever we liked. We ended up taking exactly two hours.