Message #136310

[Bianca]

Today, the method of reaching the valley from Luxor remains basically the same - with a few variations for a man in a wheelchair. We avoided the wooden catwalk, for example, by sliding Adamson down the steep sandy bank to the water's edge, myself and two others acting as human brakes. After much argument with the boatman, who wanted to put Richard on the open bow, we managed to get him safely inside. Unfortunately, getting out the other side of the ferry on the west bank of the river proved impossible—until someone wrenched the sliding cabin door right off its rollers, giving us just enough room to squeeze Adamson and his wheelchair through.


The tremendous crash brought an irate boatman running and we had to pay for the door to calm him. Then we carried Adamson up the steps from the quay and, at the top, ran a gauntlet of taxi drivers, each trying to pull the wheelchair towards his own taxi. I resolved the contest by selecting a minibus, and we drove away leaving the drivers scuffling while a policeman tried to restore order.


Soon we left the narrow strip of lush green farmland bordering the Nile, plunging abruptly into barren, bone-dry hills. The still air grew hotter and hotter as we wound our way up a rock-strewn gully that suddenly opened up into a sort of amphitheater hemmed in by towering sandstone cliffs. Here, with the highest peak in the Theban hills standing sentinel - like a natural pyramid above them - 30 pharaohs were buried.


The Valley of the Kings today is neat and orderly, with signposted pathways leading to the different tombs, and an air-conditioned rest house, where visitors can escape the oven-like heat, but when Sergeant Adamson first arrived in 1922 it was quite different. It was, Adamson said a scene of desolation, littered with piles of excavated debris and with no shelter from the scorching sun save two small tents and a larger marquee.


"You will sleep here," Carter had told Adamson, ducking under the rolled-up flaps of the marquee. There were rush mats on the floor, two stretcher-like cots and a trestle table. "What about food?" gasped the astonished young sergeant, who had assumed he would be staying in Luxor. "I'll have some sent up to you," was Carter's curt reply, leaving Adamson wondering whether he wouldn't prefer the risks of Cairo. His first impulse, he said, was to start walking back to Cairo.