luxor’s version of a wednesday afternoon the map might lie
so i’d rather not talk about why my socks smell like old falafel right now but here we are in 360773. the weather data says 17.c but it feels like someone stuck a damp mop in a sauna. humidity at 40 and pressure like the air’s holding its breath. i checked the app and it’s right. there’s dust right now. i hope you like that kind of thing.
if you need a distraction from the heat take a left and the souq is there. i heard that beggars get more patient as the sun climbs. or so a drunk guy told me outside the temple. don’t ask me why he was holding a loaf of bread. maybe he was trying to bargain. who knows.
i walked past the step pyramid twice. the last time it looked like the egyptian god of dust was having a dust bath. now it’s just me staring at my phone and wondering if the tickets to the back are worth the effort. someone told me last week that the priests used to hide there. i don’t know if it’s true. probably not. but still. if you get bored aswan is just a short drive away. the train’s slower than a grumpy camel though.
the neighborhood vibe is… not great. i saw a stray cat that looked like it had seen a ghost. twice. and a group of kids running through the alley with what sounded like a water balloon. i swear one of them threw it at my head. probably. maybe it was just my imagination. who’s to say.
photos of this place are everywhere. some bad. some worse. here’s one that might not be terrible:
i also found this gem from the ’gram: a repost of a guy in linen pants holding a camera. not sure if it’s real. but hey it’s oxford cloth. that’s something.
you might be wondering why i’m writing this at 3am. short answer: i booked a hostel through a local k rabid college student. her name’s nada. she told me via whatsapp that the showers would be decent. turns out they were literally the sink. but she offered me tea. hot tea. not the k mint variety. that’s what kept me sane.
so here’s the deal. if you visit 360773 expect the weather to lie. the map to show you a straight line to nowhere. and the strangers to ask you about pharaohs. which is fair. they’re everywhere. even in the dust. i swear one of them was a historian named al مروخ. he kept talking about a secret chamber. i didn’t believe him. but now i watch the stars here nightly thinking maybe he wasn’t lying.
links. for the uninitiated: 1.for reviews of the west bank. 2.if you need a decent coffee. 3.for street art spots. i heard the one near the market’s haunted by a guy in a tophat.
and that’s it. i’ll be taking a nap before someone bills me for this rambling. p.s. if you’re here for the photography? sacrific your gear. i did. it collected dust like a magnet. lesson learned: bring a lens cloth. and maybe a rain jacket. even if it doesn’t rain.
ps:for people who want to caption this as ‘i survived luxor’.
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