Day Twenty-six - Luxor

Sunday 27th June 2010

We arrived in hot Luxor around 8am and went straight to Hotel Venus without having any breakfast. After a little haggling over the price, we contacted Paola through couch-surfing which meant she shouldn't be getting business through the website but she said she would give a good price, we went upstairs dumped our stuff and had MUCH needed showers. After a night of uncomfortable not-quite-asleep sleep in a two day old T-Shirt I was absolutely humming, I can safely say that I have never ever smelt that bad ever before in my life but I'm sure travelling and getting the most from my clothes means that my fragrant body odour will not be a stranger for a long time. Damn.

Fresh from Moroccan pressed olive soap and lots of lukewarm water, we slept for a good five hours sprawled on the bed underneath the air-conditioning, bliss. Feeling surprisingly little hunger we decided to go out and get something small to eat and a big bottle of water. Paola from reception recommended a busy Egyptian fast food joint a few metres down the road but said that should we be charged tourist prices we should come back, tell them what we want and they would go out and get it for us. Which is what we ended up doing – the tourist prices being 2-3 times the standard price. Fortified by my fetched aubergine sandwich I spent the next four hours at work writing and editing photos, I also spent a very pleasant and much needed half an hour talking to Mum and Nan. Meanwhile Djalma watched a match, (Germany v England 4-1) and went on a mammoth mission to try and pay for our cruise, which we still haven't done.

We left the hotel to go and watch the football match (between Argentina and Mexico 3-1) and drank over priced sprite, even with the price reduced to 5 bounds, apparently the local price, more lies – so we left at half time to find somewhere else to watch the game (and me – type). We found a café, the sheesha and backgammon tables lining an alley covered with a wooden trellis and decorated with rows of plastic leaves, surprisingly pretty. Here the price for a water pipe was a standard five bounds but mango juice was ten, six more than it should have been, he settled for six and so we finished watching the match before heading back to sleep (again) for an early start tomorrow exploring the East bank.