The Land of no Top Floors, Sun, 06 Mar 2022 | written by Simon
Jemma and Simon at a Desert, Graveyard, Ruins/Excavation, UNESCO site in Africa, Egypt

We slept long and well, if you don’t count the annoying throat ache I developed last evening. I think it must be the dust, because it gets much worse when I’m in the desert. But we got up very late, after 8am! After a delightfully slow morning, we head out to see the Tombs of the Nobles and Quebbet al Hawa, both within a walking distance. As soon as we got on site, a bunch of guys pulled us to join their Jamaican stoner troupe in paradise by the canal. They told us about their slow lifestyle and how as Nubians they are quite different from the noisy Egyptians. To be honest, they have a point. We hung out for a bit, procured a camel ride from them, and head off to the tomb hill.

  • You really appreciate how amazingly the Pharaons’ tombs are decorated when you see the tombs of the merely rich people.
  • A lot of the lesser tombs are just open and you can crawl in, quite deep into the tunnels. Which we obviously did. We found some bats inside, too.
  • There is obviously a lot of rubbish everywhere. We picked up as much as we could on the way.
  • Climbing a hill around noon is hard work.
  • The gender segregation here is really shocking – there are no women hanging out with men, anywhere, ever. Not even in paradise.

When we climbed all the way to Quebbet el Hawa, one of our new paradise friends was already waiting for us. I have to say I was impressed with just how chill and unhurried he was – not only no issue with us having arrived there quite late, we even hung out at the top for a longer while before moving on.

The camel ride to St Simeon’s Monastery was totally awesome. A bit scary at the start, especially since we began by descending the hill and the camels were tripping on stones a bit. But we soon got the hang of it,even though the camels kept insisting on colliding with each other. We had plenty of riding time, too, because it was about one hour one way!

The monastery is an epic ruin. While there, we also rode up to the Aga Khan Mausoleum, though only saw it at a distance as it’s not open to visitors. Back at the Quebbet al Hawa, we finished going through the tombs, cooled our feet in the paradise canal, and head home to chill.

In the evening, we tried to go back to view the sunset from the hill, but they wanted us to buy a second ticket, so we resigned and just spent the evening at home, getting a bit annoyed with mosquitos.