Day 12 Dakhla Oasis

• We have breakfast and a lazy morning before meeting up with Aziz 'our man in Dakhla Oasis'.

Aziz and a couple of locals in Dakhla Oasis

• Aziz knows Dakhla Oasis well and takes us around the two different parts of the old town. The first part is where people still live.

Women are not covered up in Dakhla Oasis like they are in Siwa and so this is a good opportunity to say hello and mingle with the locals and take their picture if they don't mind.. The girl on the left is about 15 and found our group rather interesting and hung around us for awhile.

Another one for the album.

The old, old town is a few minutes drive away. It has been preserved as a museum and nobody lives there now. It's a very interesting and photogenic place. Remember all pictures I take on the tour, I pass on to you at the end of the trip.

Yep... it still works

• Just when you think you have seen all there is to see in Dakhla Oasis, we jump in a mini bus and head off to the Roman mummies on the edge of town.

Perched on a hill, several tombs that were discovered in the last ten years

Due to their recent discovery the mummies are very much intact.

There are several hot springs in Dakhla and after our day's sightseeing we head off to one for some swimming. The spring shown here has quick sand on the bottom that is blown up by the flow of the water coming out of the ground. Only for the brave ... or stupid;)

• Dinner on one of the local restaurants. They are not as good as the restaurants in Siwa but they are clean and the food is good.

Day 13 Dakhla – Luxor

• The microbus picks us up early in the morning and we head off for the long drive to Luxor by-passing Karga Oasis. We arrive in Luxor in the early evening and see the sun setting over the Nile valley as we drive down the mountains from the East. In Luxor we don't stay in one of the many tourist hotels. We stay in a Villa located right in the middle of a small village on the east bank that has not changed it's ways since its occupants built the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Here we stay in a luxury villa with a large amount of living space where you can walk out the door and be in amongst the locals and not the tourist touts on the other side of the river in Luxor. The village is very basic, but there is a simple shop in someone's house and many children playing in the street. An hour or two walking around the villa with your camera will produce some amazing pictures.

• As we have spent all day traveling, we cook an early dinner and chill watching TV or read a book on the rooftop looking out over the Nile.

Day 14 Luxor –Valley of the Kings

• Another dawn raid on adventure! We head off around 6.00am and meet Mohammad at the stables who harnesses us all up and off we go.

We ride through the old villages to the bottom of the mountain

As we climb as the balloons take off at sunrise

The mountain changes colour as the sun begins to rise

The views are stunning

It is the best way to travel to the Valley of the Kings to appreciate the remoteness

Finally we arrive at the top of the mountain with the Valley of the Kings below

The Valley of the Kings from above, where we dismount the donkeys

We walk the last ten minutes down into the Valley letting the donkeys have a rest

Once in the Valley of the Kings, we meet our guide who has been waiting for us. He is a student at the university in Luxor and there is nothing he does not know about the tombs here.Our tickets let us visit three of the tombs and we can take as long as we like doing this. There are people everywhere willing to take your money and so, once we are finished, we head up the mountain on foot for 10 to 15 minutes to meet our well-rested donkeys

On the way back it is getting quite warm, but luckily for the donkeys it is downhill!

We pass the Temple of Hatshepsut on our way back to the Nile

And more local villages...

and farmers fields.

We arrive back at the villa around lunchtime and have a choice of eating on the roof of the villa looking out over the Nile or a restaurant nearby. The afternoon is spent doing anything you want. If you have the energy, catch the ferry and go shopping in Luxor. If it is all too much and you're tired, have a siesta and all meet up for dinner in the villa with a few beers and a bottle of wine.

To continue the Living with the Locals tour, please click here