My Travel Adventures

We began our itinerary at a leisurely eight o’clock in the morning. While the ship remained moored by the pier under Luxor Temple, a small boat took our group to the opposite bank. Imbued with symbolic importance, the western bank of the Nile is home to the Theban Necropolis, a vast collection of royal mortuary temples and necropoleis. This is where, especially during the New Kingdom, pharaohs were laid to rest in ornate tombs covered in carvings and paintings of scenes from sacred funerary texts. Many of the tombs were looted, some of them by subsequent pharaohs looking for extra funds to line their coffers, and their long exposure to the outside atmosphere is why most paintings appear heavily bleached.

I have always wanted to go to Egypt. Cairo, Alexandria, Giza, the Nile – I’ve known these names for as long as I can remember. In fourth or fifth grade, our history curriculum focussed on Ancient Egypt: one day we dressed up as Ancient Egyptians and baked what the teachers believed to be the closest approximation of Ancient Egyptian bread. I do not remember what I wore, but I distinctly remember some children arriving wrapped in toilet paper and claiming they were mummies. In the years when we studied Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, my bedsheets made for a splendid toga.