Day Six (Part 3) - Deir El Bahari

After visit to the Valley of the Kings it was back on the mini bus and off to Queen Hatshepsut's Mortuary Temple at Deir El Bahari, about a 10 minute journey.

I've wanted to see this temple since I was a child. I saw a documentary about Deir El Bahari when I was about 12 years old and was amazed at the scale of this construction. I have a feeling this was what got me first interested in Ancient Egypt. To finally get here and see it for myself was amazing.

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Before we reached the temple our guide stopped us and asked if we knew of the terrorist attack which took place on 17 November 1997. Sabine and I knew but the others in our group didn't so the guide explained, with quite a shocking story...

He told us that he was here when the attack took place, guiding a group of Italian tourists that day. He said he saw six people who looked out of place and he sensed something was not quite right. As they got nearer he could see they had arabic writing on their foreheads which said something along the lines of "Allah is the only true God". The leader of the group stood next to our guide and told him to get on the ground. He declined the offer and asked what was going on. The man said they were here to kill tourists and that if he didn't get on the ground the first bullet was going to be for him. Our guide said he couldn't see any guns so again he declined. That was when the man opened his jacket, pulled out a gun and shot our guide in the leg (he really had been shot, he showed us the scar made from the bullet). Our guide then told us that the man started shooting tourists while another man followed behind him carrying ammunition magazines. When the first man had emptied a magazine he would hand it to the man behind him who would give him a full magazine to continue the killing spree.

Our guide told us that an armed Egyptian police officer or security guard had hidden once the shooting started. When the terrorists had finished he opened fire on them and shot one of the terrorists in the leg. The others returned fire and then went to leave. When they went to help their wounded comrade they realised he couldn't walk so they shot him dead! They then made off in an empty bus and fled to the mountains. Eventually they were cornered in a cave and decided to kill themselves rather than be caught. 62 people were killed during the attack, 58 of them foreign tourists; 35 Swiss, ten Japanese, six Britons, four Germans, one French, one Colombian, and a dual-national Bulgarian/Briton. Our guide told us that the terrorists turned out to be extremely well educated men; a chemist and professor amongst them.

Since that day there is an ever present armed police presence everywhere you go (there is even an armed tourism police officer in each hotel).

Once he had completed his story our guide asked us, with a wry smile on his face, if we wanted to carry on to the temple. Of all the people to guide us today, we get the one that took the first bullet that day!

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Day 6 - Valley of the Queens >>