Extra Egpt: Inside A Royal Tomb

Along with Marcia and Sue, I met another amazing pair of women on our Egyptian tour.
While initially I thought everyone on our tour was American, it turns out there was a pair of sisters on our trip from Canada: Penny and Lurene.
It was in the Valley Of The Kings that I had my first adventure with this pair of sisters.
In one of the 4 tombs we went into, there was a staircase that descended down into the mountain.  I honestly can't remember which tomb it was, but the day we were there was a hot day (about 90°F) and inside the tombs, there was no air circulation -- the moisture from the tourist's breath and sweat made the inside humid, humid, humid.  I would have thought that being inside the mountain, it would be cooler, like going into a cave, but I guess since there's no air circulation to move the humidity, it just gets warmer and warmer.
It definitely was not a dry heat.

No one in our group was up for the adventure of going down the aforementioned stairs -- except for me and Penny and Lurene.  So down we went.

Again, I was surprised, with heat rising and all, that it was not cooler further down.
It was like descending into hell.
Hotter and hotter and even more humid.
Finally, sweating and panting, we reached the bottom chamber.
It was a dimly lit empty room.

Empty except for a glass display case in a dark corner, and an Egyptian lurker holding a light bulb on an extension cord.  Penny and Lurene and I basically all said, "Oh hell no" at the same time: we'd come all that way down (and knew we'd have to pant all the way back up) just to be met by a guy who'd want to be baksheeshed in order to shine his light onto the case.  None of us had our cameras anyway, so we turned around and started our ascent from the depths of humid hell.

I like the picture above for a couple of reasons: one, it shows Penny and Lurene there at the top of the ramp, and two, it shows how this ramped corridor descends into the tomb.
Tune in tomorrow for one of my most favorite sites in Egypt: Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple.