Gentle Giant Has Melted

The walk to the temples from the parking lot and visitor centre is rather long and hilly, and for that reason, I’m offered a seated travel position. The wheelchair is manoeuvred by an employee of the site, a tall and strong young man with a friendly smile. It’s all well and good, but as the employee approaches our group with the chair, it becomes clear that the chair is as debilitated as I am. It has a rickety left wheel and moves almost as though it were limping. Hmmm. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Fate was making fun of me. Left wonky wheel, left broken ankle . . . 

Carefully, I sit down in the dilapidated thing, half expecting it to totally collapse under me. It remains in one piece and I soon discover that it’s actually not as bad as it looks. While moving, the wobbly limping motion of the wheel gives the feeling of floating on water caressed with soft, gentle waves. It’s very soothing.

We arrive at the site after a fifteen-minute ride and I ask my gentle giant pusher to stop and let me out of the chair. Any longer in the rocking and swaying thing and I might drift off to sleep and miss the temples, and that just would not do. I stand up and start crutching to the entrance of Ramses’s temple. Words can’t describe the feelings evoked by the genius, the artistry, the sheer greatness of it all. I spend several minutes just staring at it, mouth hanging open, before finally proceeding to the entrance. 

Stairs no longer bear any mystery for me, but the steep entrance ramp into the temple gives me pause. There are no side rails or supports of any kind onto which I can hold to make my way up the incline. Before I can figure out how to scale the ramp without sliding, falling, or tumbling all the way back down, Gentle Giant and the wheelchair reappear. I sit. Expecting the chair to start moving forward, then gently up the ramp, I’m startled by suddenly being tilted backward so that I’m now gazing at the sky with my legs in the air. The rocket launch position is explained by the fact that, with the ramp being too steep for normal chair ascent, Gentle Giant is using the roll-up-using-only-the-back-wheels approach.

Terrific! I’m making my entrance into one of the world’s greatest splendours butt first. How’s that for an insult to Ramses and the gods? Is it any wonder I’m cursed? I do sincerely hope that no one is taking pictures. Just in case, I attempt to shield my identity by lowering my geeky hat over my face. Mind you, with the cast, crutches, and wheelchair, I have a hunch that my cover is already blown. 

Gentle Giant gets me to the entrance without dropping me or sending me somersaulting backward into the crocodiles’ dining room, a.k.a. Lake Nasser. Sitting upright now and thinking that I would crutch it the rest of the way, I get up only to be gently guided back down in the chair and push-wobbled into the temple. Although my independent persona is being somewhat irked, I know Gentle Giant is only trying to be kind and helpful. Still, I know something he doesn’t. I know what’s going to take place inside the temple once I’m surrounded by the sublime beauty of it and realize, Holy cow, I’m actually here!

 

Sure enough, as we enter the temple, with the emotions of the moment rushing all at once into my frontal cortex, I burst into tears. I had hoped this to be a private moment, to be able to tearfully, but quietly, stand in a corner, tripod-like, and relish this touching experience. Instead, I’m a rolling, blubbering mass of metal and human, trundling around the temple and scaring the other tourists.

After regaining some composure, I manage to get down to business and suck in all the amazing art work, statues, decorated pillars, and hieroglyphic inscriptions into my memory banks. Sadly, photography isn’t permitted inside the temple, but nothing short of a ride through a wood-chipper will ever erase these images from my mind.

We exit Ramses’s temple and Gentle Giant aims the wheelchair toward that of Nefertari, situated some distance away, across a sea of sandy gravel. Remembering the pyramids and the sand and rock terrain preventing approach by wheelchair, I’m ready to start crutching. But no. Reverting back to the majestic legs-in-the-air position, Gentle Giant continues pushing, more forcefully this time, looking very much as if he were handling a fully-loaded wheelbarrow. You may be tempted to ask what’s in the wheelbarrow. Well, esteemed reader, I leave that up to your imagination. You can fill it up with imaginary dirt, gravel, or cupcakes, if you wish. You can put anything you want in it, anything other than a steaming, stinking heap of manure. I do have standards!

Anyway, the going is rough. Without warning, the ground surface alternates between a squishy and uneven mess and a rugged and bumpy nightmare, and the wonky wheel is not making forward progress any easier. Instead of the floating-water-soft-waves feeling, we’ve graduated to an energetic Tilt-a-Whirl experience with the occasional, whiplash-inducing lurch to one side or the other. I don’t have to worry about falling asleep in this topsy-turvy blender of a ride. I just hope the wheelbarrow-chair stays in one piece. Using seemingly superhuman strength, Gentle Giant strives to prevent the chair from getting bogged down in the sand or caught on the rocks, and me from being ejected like an unwanted rider off a bucking horse.

We arrive relatively intact at Nefertari’s temple and roll-limp inside. By now, I’ve decided to abandon the idea of being autonomous and settle down to enjoy the visit. And this time, there are no tears, just awe and admiration.

The invalid in front of Nefertari's temple

After Nefertari’s temple, it’s time to head back to the bus, a long trek, mostly uphill. Gentle Giant, having stopped briefly to catch his breath—and take my picture—resumes his pushing. With all the sweating from the Herculean task to which he’s been subjected, through the heat, I’m amazed that he hasn’t melted to half his size. I peek back to make sure he’s still alive and realize, with a shock, that he has indeed melted. 

The six-foot tall, two hundred-pound young man that had started out on our journey is now barely five-foot-three, weighing one hundred pounds at the most. What wonders of Egyptian physiology could enable such metamorphosis? Is it something analogous to camels who can store massive amounts of water in their humps, but in reverse? Looking more closely, I realize this is a different guy altogether. When had this exchange taken place? 

Mystified and still pondering the unexplained abduction of Gentle Giant and replacement with Lilliput Man, we reach the visitor centre where food, drink, and souvenirs can be bought. Surprisingly, Gentle Giant is already there with drinks in hand for us. Now it makes sense. Lilliput Man had kindly but surreptitiously taken over for Gentle Giant so he could sprint ahead and get us refreshments.  Oh, man! It doesn’t get any better than that. For all their efforts, they’ve earned my profuse thanks and a generous monetary compensation. 

This still doesn’t seem enough, but the offer of my first-born—as yet non-existent—would just be silly, given my age. So I offer them my hat, my geeky hat, which they politely refuse. And I don’t blame them. Tourists are expected to look funny; local residents, not so much.

Back at the airport, the plane did indeed wait for us. Same plane, same crew, same good flight. And, true to Yasmin’s word, the boat is still there as we arrive at the dock. It’s nearly 4 P.M. when we board the ship, and as the last person gets on, we sail, headed back to Luxor.

By now, breakfast has become a very faint memory and we’re all famished. Our entire group stampedes down to the dining room to see if there are any crumbs left over from lunch for us starving tourists.