Valley of the Queens and the Luxor catechism

I struck a bargain with Mr Ahmed, surely the most urbane of Luxor's taxi drivers, to drive me out to the Valley of the Queens for the afternoon. Photography isn't permitted inside the tombs, so my souvenir pictures are limited to the landscape.


Driving away from the Nile, one crosses a line where the irrigation ends - green on one side, sand-coloured on the other. Small villages dot the area, but outside them there is nothing green. It's an astounding barrenness, a clean skeleton of a land - entirely fitting for the great necropolises there.

With limited time, I didn't visit the Valley of the Kings. By all accounts, many tombs in the other necropolises are just as fascinating, but tour groups congregate where the notoriety is. Avoiding large groups when visiting tombs is no mere matter of aesthetics - or perhaps I should say it's a matter of atmosphere, literally. A small room deep underground rapidly fills with the exhalations of visitors. The tomb of Titi - the nearer of the two entrances in the photo above - contained maybe twenty other people when I entered. I couldn't endure the close air very long, and I don't remember a thing about the paintings.

I was lucky enough to catch a break between tour groups when I visited the tomb of Amunherkhepshef, a prince who died young. The beautiful and well-preserved wall paintings show the pharoah presenting his small son to various gods. I studied them at leisure, accompanied only by the caretaker, who spoke no English but who fanned me solicitously.

It must have been on this day that I started taking notes on the Luxor catechism. Wherever you go in Luxor, the taxi drivers, tomb caretakers, tourist guides and market vendors ask the same questions. If people know only a few words of English, they know parts of this catechism. It always starts with an enthusiastic "Welcome!" and should be liberally punctuated with the same.

Welcome!
Alexa: Thank you.
Which country?
Alexa: Mozambique.
Mozambique? Very nice people. (Shop owners add: I have many friends in Mozambique.)
First time here?
Alexa: Yes.
How long you stay?
Alexa: Just a few days.
Not long enough.
Alexa: I know. I'll come back.
Egyptian market?
Alexa: No thanks.

("Egyptian market?" was a specialty of Luxor's caleche (pony cart) drivers. They explain that Luxor's main souk is for tourists and offer to show a real Egyptian market of the kind where the locals shop. I tried to explain that, being from Mozambique, I shopped in (ahem) picturesque markets all the time, and the local version wasn't very high on my list of priorities. But the caleche drivers' determination was remarkable. Close to 11pm on my second day I sleepily climbed into a caleche to get from the Karnak sound-and-light show to the ferry terminal, and in the five-minute ride the driver enquired "Egyptian market?" three times.)

I don't mean to mock anyone's language skills. The average souvenir-seller in Luxor puts most English speakers to shame in that respect - their livelihood depends on it. If I ignored a spiel in English, vendors would try me with Italian, French or German.

As I emerged from the Valley of the Queens, I asked the massed vendors at the gate whether any of them could sell me images of the wall-paintings I'd just admired. Somehow the request for pictures came out in Portuguese - but it was understood, and there was a general flurry as every vendor present rushed to check his stock of postcards. No one had any, but the request flew the length of the row of shops faster than I walked it. As I was about to leave, the one man who had what I wanted hurried over, saying, "Are you the lady who speaks Spanish?"

I bought his book of photos, but the price we agreed on, after a long exchange of offers and counter-offers, plainly wasn't up to his expectations. I did warn him that I came from Mozambique. Surely his other Mozambican friends must have told him we can bargain.