Day 9 - Balloon ride over the Nile at dawn, Valley of the Kings/Queens
Up REAL early for a hot air balloon ride over the West Bank of the Nile! After our hot air balloon ride we hopped right back on our tour bus to visit both the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens.
Note for our KCMO friends - we got to see the tomb of Queen Nefertari. Artifacts from her tomb where the subject of a recent exhibit at the Nelson-Atkins...
Back to the ship for lunch, some downtime, a sunset cocktail party, a reception by the Captain, dinner, and finally some after-dinner entertainment - belly dancing and a Whirling Dervish show! Yet another exciting day!!
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Leaving our ship at 0-Dark-30... |
... to catch a shuttle to the west bank of the Nile. |
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At the hot air balloon launch site, watching the crew filling up our balloon. |
Filling more balloons. A major operations, I counted something like twenty balloons launched... |
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Per our tour guide, they do three sets of flights each day. Ours was the first of the day, timed to have us up for sunrise... Almost ready to go! |
And we are off! |
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Airborne! |
Looking out over the Valley of Kings. Later today we toured there... |
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Floating over an unspecified temple/ruin... |
All too soon, time to land. We were told to brace ourselves but the landing turned out to be nothing, just a little bump. We ended up 100 yards from where we started! |
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Next stop - the Valley of the Kings (and the Queens too, of course)! |
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Approaching the tombs |
We toured any number of tombs, this was the first! |
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Angela in the crypt... |
... while John looked on from slightly above. |
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Interior shot, incredibly ornate! |
All the tombs were deep below ground = a lot of steps up and down! |
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Next tomb! |
Another interior shot, even more ornate than the first one! |
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John in the crypt this time... |
... and back up the stairs, whew! |
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Another tomb... |
... and another, this is the one they had the exhibit on in KCMO! So neat to see the exhibit in KC, then come see the actual tomb in Egypt... |
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Interior shot... |
... and another! |
