The breakfast buffet was good, so today I started with the hot food. Fried eggs, potatos, tomato, etc. Orange juice. But I was invisible to the waiters with the coffee. It seems to me that the hotel is cutting too many corners: no tea or coffee in the room, try not to serve much at the breakfast buffet. They charge 25 Le for it in the bar where an acceptable price might be 15 Le. Anyway, over the course of about 45 minutes I finally managed to secure 2 cups of coffee.
I took a taxi to the museum today. I gave the driver 20 Le, which is probably on the generous side but if I'd tried to give him less there would probably have been an incident. He offered to take me back in the evening and gave me his card, so I know that he was not dissatisfied. Taxis in Luxor do not have meters.
At lunch time I had 2 hours to kill while the speakers and delegates lunched elsewhere, so I walked to the Eatabe Hotel: I spent my first night ever in Egypt there 17 years ago when it was the Mercure Etap. On the way I passed Emely which looks vey sad close-up. The Savoy Market is still there, but one of the shops, "Alandalas", should be advertising "No has sales" rather than "No Hassales".
I wandered into the Eatabe and seated myself at the first available table in the garden, as near to the hotel as possible. Usually I get served quickly here, but today I was invisible. So I moved across the garden to the other side of the large swimming pool, found a table and ordered a cola zero. The waiter took the best part of 15 minutes to find one in the main hotel. I took some pictures of the sparrows drinking and washing on the edge of the pool.
I fancied a 2nd drink, but they had no more low calorie drinks so I settled for a small (250cl) can of normal Cocacola. Prices here are sensible in comparison with Iberotel. A soft drink is 15 Le, a small water is 7 Le and a Stella is 30 Le. Bear in mind that this hotel is roughly the same standard as Iberotel, so why are the drinks around half the price? I checked the menu and wine list and the prices on these were around 60% of Iberotel prices.
My main reason for staying at Iberotel was that this was the hotel being used by the conference. But the speakers and delegates were treated differently to other attendees. If I had known that I would have stayed at Eatabe instead. I walked briskly (for me) back to the museum for the afternoon session.
I took a different taxi back to the hotel. This journey is a little shorter than the morning trip because of the dual carriageway outside the hotel. I also gave this driver 20 Le, but he got quite upset, wanting 30 Le. I ignored his protests and walked away. I was not born yesterday!
I fancied eating in the Pizzeria Romance, which is also in the garden area of the hotel. But it has been closed so long that there aren't even any reviews on TripAvisor: probably since 2011!
So I ate instead in the main hotel restaurant, Cote Jardin. I pigged out on a selection of 3 starters (there were actually 4) for 40 Le, Steak with pepper sauce with fries and mixed vegetables, 100 Le, and fresh fruit salad with ice-cream, 50 Le. The waiter actually asked whether I wanted my steak medium or well done, which suggested that it was a real steak rather than the sort of meat by that name on the West Bank. So I asked for it to be rare. It arrived while I was still eating the starters so I sent it back to the kitchen. 5 minutes or so later it returned. I was pleasantly surprised that it was still rare. My only quibble was that the waiters were over-attentive. With 3 of them running 5 tables between them it is understandable. And there were some guests on full board (or all inclusive) identified by a yellow wristband: the waiter wanted to know what they would like tomorrow when they were part way through today's meal. If I had been one of them I would have been less than polite, but they were compliant and gave an order.
The lights on the West Bank and Theban Hills looked good from my balcony: no signs now of the khamsin.