A knock on the door at 4.50am, the earliest start yet. We rolled out of bed ten minutes before the minivan was due to collect us, brushed our teeth, pulled on clothes and headed out into the dark. The minivan took us to the river where we bundled into a private river taxi and, for safety reasons?!, put on life jackets for the three minute journey across to the other side. Trying to drink the tea and eat the cake was fun with the bulky life vests on, very elegant.
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| From 2 Luxor |
Another minivan was waiting to take us to the airfield where the hot air balloons were being filled with a mix of hot and cold air. We arrived while several were being inflated, it was amazing to watch them grow, swelling with air and slowly popping upright when full. Our balloon was least pleasing to look at so I was glad we were flying in it and not one of the better looking balloons. The basket was quite small, fitting about eight people plus the overly chatty captain, who was full of awful jokes (best kept to himself at such an early hour) and we were soon floating slowly, silently and very smoothly heavenward. The view was incredible and watching the sun come up over the Nile was beautiful, the colours were so soft and were reflected on the surface of the river. Everything was so quiet, save for the pilot and a Columbian lady (with a very strong American accent who spoke near constantly) and so peaceful in the morning light.
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| From 2 Luxor |
The Theban Hills were so striking, we could see the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens and a few other sites I can't remember the name of now, and the air was filled with balloons – it was a wonderful view, and such a beautiful way to start the day. We asked the pilot is we could go where some of the other balloons were going, having twisted and turned over essentially the same spot. Our pilot told us that the balloon over the Valley of the Kings was there because it was out of control and that if we ended up there he would have to call a helicopter to resuce us, the other balloons had drifted further away nearer the Nile and he said that they were all trying to come back because they were out of control too, apparently they should all have been doing what we were doing, he was so full of shit. After our time was up, we drifted slowly down, just as magical as going up, we hovered just feet from the ground while a van pulled up and the ground crew came running over through the fields (luckily we had stopped in a dry mud field and not one of the many growing sugar cane) like on 'Challenge Aneka' (like the lovely Scottish lady commented in the next compartment in the basket). They pulled us, still in the basket, over the field next to the minivan which had just arrived, while we were still afloat. I wasn't feeling too well by this point, my tummy feeling a bit squiffy (fortunately just a false alarm) but I was keen to get back to the hotel and rest while near a toilet.
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| From 2 Luxor |
We did the same chain of events but backwards and this time without the safety vest on the river taxi or the cups of tea and were dropped off by taxi back at our hotel, the tour manager (not sure what he was) very keen to make sure we were happy, the thing was, was that he tried to hard and, I think, only to get extra money, which made me feel quite uneasy and even more eager to get back into the safety of the hotel. After saying goodbye and assuring him that we were quite happy with the ride which we were despite the awful, full of crap captain, we climbed the stairs and promptly went back to sleep.
The lazy bums that we were, we slept until about 3 in the afternoon, partly to make up for the lack of good sleep we had had the previous night when the air-conditioning was off. I didn't make it back out the hotel all day, Djalma went out to get some lunch which we ate while watching 'The Informant' ad then was picked up to go and pay for the cruises in full (Luxor to Aswan and Aswan to Lake Nasser). In the evening I updated the blog and the pictures from the morning balloon flight while he went and smoked himself silly on one sheesha pipe while watching the game (Spain v Portugal 1-0). Back to bed for more sleep.
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