Luxor

Reminiscing about travelling the other day (story of my life) with a friend, we got onto the subject of brushes with danger we had experienced while travelling.

I had this covered. Let me take you back to Egypt three years ago. I was travelling there with my two sisters and brother-in-law on a trip that was cursed somewhat to begin with. It was March 2012, just over a year since the revolution. People thought we were crazy for going, and we umm-ed and ahh-ed over whether we would actually go in the months leading up to it, and I’m so glad that we did. Egypt is magical. Nothing can compare to the pyramids, the people are beautiful, and it has given me by far the best travel stories out of all the places I’ve been to.

After spending a couple of days in Cairo, we took an overnight train to Luxor. Our train was meant to come at 9pm but was cancelled due to strikes. The four of us and our tour guide along with a bazillion other people were waiting aimlessly on the platform with no confirmation as to whether another train was actually coming. Still ridiculously jet lagged, we sat on our suitcases, pumping our veins full of Turkish coffee trying to stay awake. About three hours later, the train arrived.

After a very uncomfortable and rickety overnight train in conditions which required us to sleep on our our soiled clothes rather than going under the covers of the bed in our sleeper cabin, we eventually we got into Luxor and spent the day exploring Luxor temple and Karnak temple. The next morning we had planned a hot air balloon ride at sunrise over the Valley of the Kings, so we had an early night to rest up.

The next morning we woke at 4am. Our hotel had kindly packed us breakfast and we piled into a van to take us to the hot air balloon. The breakfast pack consisted of a boiled egg, some kind of super sweet bread and orange juice. It was about 4.30am by this time, and yes I devoured that egg.

We arrived at our destination and hundreds of hot air balloons were spread across a lush green field. Their enormous balloons being inflated with helium all at the same time that you could barely hear a thing.

We got into the basket of our balloon and the helium took us up and up. The sky was full of balloons. We floated over the Nile and its fertile land as the sun rose and toward the desert.

The Valley of the Kings is something to behold. An area so vast scattered with tombs and temples of Egypt’s great Pharoahs. There are 65 of them, but one can only wonder if there are more yet to be discovered.

After taking in this stunning view we began the slow descend to land with the rest of the balloons. We floated in unison gracefully and let the wind carry us down.

This is so beautiful! I don’t want it to end. It’s magical. It’s – wait. Why are we floating away from the other balloons?

We were so caught up in the amazement of it all we hadn’t realised that the other balloons were already on ground while we were still airborne, and we were continuing to move away. Our captain (I’m not sure if hot air balloons have captains, but they do now) was furiously pulling on the balloons levers and ropes and pumping helium, while his phone was continuously ringing, playing George Michael’s Careless Whisper. He answered it while maneuvering the balloon and started yelling in Arabic – although we couldn’t be sure if it was yelling-yelling or just talking-yelling – and then hanging up.

Baaaaa-dah-dah-dah-dah-dahhhh-dah-dah. Dah-dah-dah-dah-dahhhhh-dah-dah. Dah-dah-dah-dah…..

That’s the cheesy 80’s sax intro to Careless Whisper, if you didn’t realise. His phone was ringing again. The captain was getting more animated now and extremely flustered. By this time we have drifted into a more rural area. We looked down to notice that locals were watching us below.

That’s so nice that everyone has come out to see us!

Then, looking to our right we see a woman standing on a balcony looking in horror as the balloon just scrapes by the building.

This should have been worrying to us. But a combination of heat exhaustion and jet lag just made all of us giddy and we were in fits of laughter.

HA! Did you see how close we were to that hotel!? That lady was freaking out!

If we were unsure if the captain was yelling before, he sure was now. He grabbed a rope, from where, I’m not sure, and threw it down to the locals below us. They scrambled for the rope. About 15 of them grabbed hold of the rope, kicking up dust as the balloon pulled them along. The captain is going nuts and Careless Whisper keeps playing. The soundtrack to impending doom.

Despite being so far above ground the captain manages to finally get the locals in order. With a concerted effort and a lot of heave-hoing the balloon lands in a paddock with a thud. The staff from the hot air balloon tour company, who must have followed our balloon in a van are there to greet us as we hit the ground. They clap nervously, perhaps so we hopefully think "YAY wasn’t that great? We were totally meant to land in the middle of a sty."

The staff are also there with clipboards for us to fill out a survey to review our experience. Still in fits of laughter, I write in scrawled handwriting, because I’m close to collapsing from cacking so much, "amazing, yet terrifying."

Much to our horror, a few days later, when we get access to wifi, we google Luxor hot air balloons, and suggested searches come up with:
Luxor hot air balloon crash
Luxor hot air balloon accident
Luxor hot air balloon death toll

Yeh, we were pretty lucky. I’ll stop laughing now.