twenty ten chelle & ben: Egypt Day 9 - 10: White Desert Safari

After a breakfast of cheese, tomato, cucumber, bread and locally made date jam (yummy) we are picked up by our guide Islam and driver Magda. We have a brief stop in town for supplies where we witness the happenings of the local bakery. Piles of dough are passed through a small hole in the wall and spread all over the sandy cement pavement to rise in the sun (Ben now realises why in previous bread he had eaten sand). The town appears as if its half built or perhaps half demolished and we are still coming to terms with the way of life here – “it’s a simple life” Islam tells us. The main road of this town of 50,000 is dirt and most structures are partially completed mud brick. Donkeys pull carts with various produce and any car that passes through looks to have had a hard life. There are mounds of rubble and partially rendered walls, some painted sections and palm fronds used as fences. I felt grateful for the comforts of my own home.

I was a little naive when it came to visiting the western Desert. I was expecting yellow sand dunes as far as you could see but it was quite the opposite.

Our first stop on our way out of Bahareya Oasis towards the white Desert was a sand dune, however it was one of few we saw. The landscape was mostly rocky/ rubbly mountains with sand lying in the valleys – more like scenes from some great mining site. Next we drove into the black desert where wind has exposed mountains of sub oceanic volcanoes from millions of years past. I nearly was blown from my feet from the wind howling through the valleys as I watched Ben scramble to the top of one of the peaks.

Lunch was prepared by our driver in a Bedouin camp – trunks of palms and other branches held up a woven palm frond roof, the sand floor was covered in rugs and scattered with small tables and cushions for us to sit at, through the middle ran a small stream of fresh water being pumped from an underground water source.

Edging closer to the white desert we saw more dramatic landscapes. Crystal Mountain was a glisten in the distance; upon exploring the area we discovered many different colours and forms of crystals. A short while later our guide asked us to close our eyes as we approached a ridge of a mountain ... when told to open we were blown away with the valley we were facing. 50+ meter high limestone monoliths were surrounding the black bottom of the valley, which was once the bottom of the sea.

Thinking it couldn’t get much better than this, we briefly stopped in the old white desert and then finally the new white desert where we watched the sunset over this fascinating landscape. As our guide and driver prepared camp, Ben and I set out to what we hoped was complete isolation in order to answer the call of nature, enough said.

Dinner was cooked over a camp fire. We then enjoyed some sugary mint tea by the dying fire and watched the stars in the clearest night sky I can remember seeing. We got up early to see the sun rise and had time to explore this eerily quiet place. It seemed the only other life was a family of foxes foraging around our camp.

Breakfast wasn’t so traditional, a packaged chocolate croissant but I couldn’t complain. It was such a relaxing place to be after the turmoil of Cairo. I could have stayed for days. The drive back to our hotel was thankfully a lot quicker. I think it was around 2 hrs, compared to the 5hrs (including the numerous stops) the day before.

We had time for a shower and lunch before the long drive to Cairo airport. What should have been a 4.5hr drive turned into 6hrs. A few times our driver shouted to other cars as we stop started our way through peak hour Cairo traffic, and it wasn’t until we saw the signs to the airport, then the airport, then no more signs that we realised he was lost and was repeatedly asking for directions. Eventually we made it and luckily for us our flight to Aswan had been delayed.