Luxor

We arrived at Luxor late at night and tired after the previous days blistering temperatures and a 600 km drive and asked a policeman where the camp site was. He consulted passers by but no one had any idea. Naturally enough this was because thet were standing in front of it!

Reitsky Camp is a godsend in the heat. It has a bar with beer and wine, shade, is central for the sites and has a swimming pool!

Our journey to Luxor had taken us through various oasis towns and at El Kharga we stopped to visit the Necropolis of El Bagawãt, a Coptic graveyard. At the Police Checkpoint at the edge of town the police asked where we were going and then proceeded to follow us. With no signposts to the ruins I decided to pull over and ask them to go first which they did. When we arrived at the ruins two soldiers got out and put flak jackets and helmets on an hen toof at each end of Taffy with there machine guns. We were discreetly escorted around the site had then escorted out of town!

On arriving at the campsite we were offerred a complimentary mint tea which was a nice touch and then spent the evening chatting to Stuart and Susan who were Brits in a landrover going to SA

We visited the Luxor museum which was excellent and spent an interesting hour chatting to a teenager on the banks of the Nile. His views were quite unusual in that he drank beer, smoked pot, didn't go to mosque but thought women should be in the home and not go out as they were simply inferior to men. He was quite astounded that I thought men and women were equal.

The thing that every traveller we have met hates about Egypt is the non stop hassle you get from people trying to sell you something from shirts to boat trips, coffee to taxis. "No thanks" in Arabic or English has little effect and it really puts you off the tourist areas, especially considering how helpful Egyptians have been elsewhere. Sadly many tourists won't have experienced the more remote areas and will go home thinking all Egyptians are like this.

Jacques and Mandy arrived and we spent a couple of great evenings chatting looking at the photos of there journey from Australia and went out for a curry too!

In between the socializing we've managed to Visit Karnak which was breathtaking and get some bits made to hopefully fix one leak in our tanks. When I came to fit them I found the fix done by the garage had broken completely and I could just lift the probe out of the tank! Hopefully my effort will last longer!

The 3 brits we saw at the border crossing into Egypt have just arrived and everyone is chatting happily about the trip except me as I'm confined to quarters with the runs but I'm watching the BBC text commentary on the first test so not all bad.

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