The Temple of Hatshepsut and the Colossus

A new day. Intrepid is the name of our group. We made it up the first day. And when Rami said, "Come closer please," we told him, "Just say 'Intrepid, scrum."

You may have seen photos of this temple, which is set right against the high cliffs, with its colonnade appearing in many photos of the West Bank. An enormous amount of work has been done by Polish archaeologists, to repair, restore, replace and rebuild what is missing. Hatshepsut was a woman who decided she would be the pharaoh. She was married to her brother Thutmosis II (they had different mothers)and it was expected when he died that their son would become Thutmosis III. But he was only 8. Hatshepsut paid the priests to help her. The story they came up with was that she was the son of the God Amon. This story was painted onto the walls of the temple and people believed it. She ruled well for 21 years. But her son, then 29, came back and she disappeared. No one knows who killed her.

As we were going to the bus a man offered me 40 postcards. I say I'll pay him 10 pounds. 'No. 30." I offer 10. "Okay 10." Out of my pocket comes a 20 pound note. Do they want to give me change? They do not. He offers me a fold-out map of the Nile. "10 for the cards and 20 for the map." I say 20. "Okay." I'm so pleased with my bargaining skills. The map turns out to be in Italian and French but that's okay - I can read both.

The other amazing thing we saw was the massive, smashed statue of Rameses, which prompted Shelley to write the poem Ozymandias. Huge is not a strong enough word for it. It weighed 1000 tonnes and was 18 metres high. One of the feet still had the little toenail and that was bigger than my hand.

We also went to the temple behind it, which is called the Ramesseum. When the statue fell, aeons ago, it smashed down half of the front of the temple (the pylon). The temple of Habu came next, the second largest after Karnak. Hardly anyone there because it is not famous. I won't go into details - might be too boring unless you are passionate about Egypt.