Despite him having been at the valley of the kings the previous day we lured Julian into coming with us by choosing to ride donkeys. He had made his own way to the west bank the day before and hired a bicycle and thus got further than Tim & I who went by foot.
Julian and I had "hard tough and wiry" donkeys but poor old Tim drew the short frond and ended up with grandpa because he was the lightest. Never the less they were all healthy enough and capable of carrying us. It was fun riding there, rather than taking the main road which is about 6km we went straight over the mountain - though we had to get off and walk up the steepest parts. I had a bit of scare as we passed four men carrying a telephone cabinet up the mountain (why ?? ) and my donkey ran off the track and started sliding down the hill. Still we made it to the top OK , where we left the donkeys tied up and walked down to the ticket office.
The Valley of the kings is most famous for the tomb of Tutenkamun - although by all reports there is nothing particularly impressive about the grave itself, or even about the man himself who was very young and wasn't Pharaoh for very long. However the story goes that his death was the end of a line and heralded the return to a previous religion and so they chucked many of the sacred artifacts of his religion in the tomb with him. It was one of the last tombs found because it was covered by the workers huts that were excavating the area and was mostly intact when Howard Carter found it. Most of its contents are in the museum in Cairo now. You have to buy a separate ticket for his tomb or you can get a pass to any three other tombs for about the same price - we chose the latter. They were bigger and better kept than those of the nobles (for the obvious reason that these were the kings and had more money) - We particularly liked one right at the back Tuthmosis III.
We got back later than expected - tired and a bit sore, but happy with the day and our decision to go on four legs.
We went to McDonalds again for lunch as this seemed the easiest option in a hurry for the boys then went back to our hotel. We had already checked out in the morning - apparently the room we were in had been booked in advance and they wanted us to move back into one of the noisier rooms at the front without a bathroom - so we decided perhaps it was best to move on rather than hang around another night. After the first night in the front room I had a bit of a sore back, and we had lost faith in the hotel staff a bit. They were very friendly and helpful while they were trying to sell us tours etc but as it became clear that we were traveling cheap and doing things ourselves (and after Julian caught on not to go drinking with the guy who seemed to be getting a cut of his entrance fee) they seemed less interested in us - other than to talk about other possible tours and onwards travel arrangements.
We were running late for the taxi we had booked to the bus station - and arrived only about 15 minutes before the bus was due. We hadn't had time to shop for snacks so we went to a couple of stands to haggle for them. Since we knew the prices now and weren't going to be ripped off we thought this would be no problem - though the first guy seemed to take offense that Tim wasn't going to accept his prices and became unpleasant. We brought some water and chips from a second guy who was friendly enough - but tried to short change us. As it turned out his chips were out of date and stale any way - but we didn't check the packets.
The bus arrived approximately on time and we set off towards the red sea.
