The White Desert

Nothing can prepare you for the heat of the desert. I don't know how these Bedouin guys do it. We aren't even here in the summer, but the heat is just ridiculous. Steph and I would drink water constantly, still feel thirsty, and never have to go to the bathroom. We left our friend Sami in the Bahariya Oasis and set off into the desert with our new guide Ackmad (or something like that). Like I said in the last post, we had no idea what we were really getting into. I wasn't sure whether to expect flat and hard desert or big sand dunes like you see in the movies. The first area we drove through was called the Black Desert. It was flat except for chains of little black mountains poking out of the desert - it looked like the remains of volcanos. We pulled over next to one of the mountains and Steph and I dragged ourselves up to the top to be rewarded with an amazing view of the so-called Black Desert.

We drove along for a while before hanging a left at an unmarked spot except for some other tire tracks in the sand (no signs out here). Ackmad followed the tracks for a bit before veering off into the untouched sand to make some tracks of his own. The sand was pretty soft here and we slowly lost momentum until we stopped. I'm not sure why he would wait until now to switch to four-wheel-drive, but he did and we were able to creep along at a snail's pace. Seriously, 1 mph tops. It doesn't take a genius to realize that hot desert plus slow-moving vehicle quickly leads to overheated engine. We stopped again, Ackmad rattled around under the hood for a bit before saying "this car is done!" Before we could even begin to worry about getting trapped in the desert Ackmad pointed to a small building a few hundred yards away. As we trudged through the sand and got nearer to the building, it had what looked like a pool outside it. A mirage already? We aren't even out of water yet. It was true! Maybe not a swimming pool per se, but they were pumping water from a well 800 meters down (this may be an exaggeration, as they seem to do often - one guy told us a tree in the desert was 35,000 years old but I think that was a translation issue) into a big tank where we could swim and cool off. We had lunch then had a swim in the desert.

This car is done!

Steph and Raphaela waiting for lunch

Going for a swim with Sami

While eating lunch Sami had shown up with a new car for us. Apparently the owner of this car wasn't too keen on Ackmad driving it, so we inherited another guide for our camping trip. So the 5 of us set off and before long we reached White Desert National Park. We had given our guides money for the entrance fee, but I think they paid off the guards with some water and Bedouin bread. Our first stop was Crystal Mountain, which intially didn't look nearly as spectacular as I had envisioned. It was more like a hill, but it was in fact made of "crystal" - more likely quartz but I'm no geologist.

After Crystal Mountain we drove down a huge sand dune, occasionally stopping for photos, before reaching the crazy rock formations of the White Desert. Thousands of white chalky mounds rising out of the desert floor, many of them shaped from the blowing sand to form mushrooms and all kinds of cool shapes. It was very soft rock, but you still gotta believe it'd take a long, long time for tiny grains of sand to mold it like that. It was so cool to drive through this eerie landscape. Never before had I felt like I was on another planet more than this. They told us that it used to be under the ocean millions of years ago. All this sounds fine and you kinda nod along, but when you're standing in the middle of a huge desert and look down to see fossilized seashells it all becomes much more real.

a mushroom and the "little chicken"

We were all enjoying the scenery for a bit before our guides started chatting a bit, then turned to us and said "this is our camp." Really? We're camping here? Awesome. The national park map showed designated campgrounds, so I was expecting something along those lines. This was just a random, untouched spot next to a huge white rock. The sun was going down by this point, and the sand had cooled off very quickly, so we were happy to take off our shoes, enjoy the breeze, and climb up on a big rock to watch sunset while the guides set up camp. Amazing.

this is our camp

The whole night was just surreal. Camp wasn't anything more than some mats on the ground and a big curtain set up to block the wind. They cooked an amazing meal for us of rice, chicken, and some stew made of potatoes, tomatoes, onions, and zucchini. There's only one animal in the desert - the desert fox - and one paid a visit to us once we started cooking. Obviously this wasn't his first rodeo, and he wasn't afraid to come pretty close for a bite to eat. How those things could survive out there without a bunch of tourists feeding them every night is beyond me. After dinner Ackmad sang us some Bedouin songs and tried to teach them to us, but just pronouncing Arabic was too dificult much less memorizing the words.

our camp

our desert fox friend

As much as we were enjoying the evening, I think we were all ready to go to bed. Not only were we tired from being in the heat all day, but were anxious to turn out the lights and stare up at the marvelous night sky. It may not have been the most stars we've ever seen (New Zealand has some places that are amazing),but certainly up there. Probably the most incredible part of the night happened, ironically, when Steph woke me up at 2 or 3 in the morning because she had to go to the bathroom. It was really bright so I assumed it was morning, but how could the sun already be above our heads? That's when I realized it was the moon. I have never, ever seen the moon shine so bright. You could read a newspaper. The amazing landscape in the still of the night under the brilliant moonlight. Ridiculously cool. Too bad we didn't have our camera,though I don't think a picture could nearly have done the moment justice.

Our guides woke us up just before sunrise and we begrudgingly got out of our cosy spots on the sand. I was a little mad because I wanted to sleep more, but then we saw the sunrise. And I literally mean we saw the sunrise. Another first - we saw the sun the last second it went over the horizan in the evening and saw it the first second it rose over the opposite horizon in the morning. Pretty cool. A great finish to easily our second favorite experience of this trip (behind Machu Picchu, but not by much). Okay, so we were pretty miserable on the bus ride back to Cairo since there was no AC on the bus, but we've found the negative memories of travel quickly fade and only leave the positive memories to remember, of which we are very grateful - that bus ride was horrible!

Steph at sunrise

Sunrise in the desert