The Western Desert

Sorry about the delay on these, wrote most of the entries out there at the time but the internet was actually pretty sporadic and a bit hopeless sometimes so couldn't upload them!

Arriving in Cairo late evening, we met the rest of our group now joining us for the Egypt leg and said goodbye to Ian and Minesh, who had to go back for work. We now also have Kath from Melbourne, Tamara from Alice Springs, Sandy from Brisbane, Rachel from Melbourne but living in London, Claudia from Berlin, Uli from the US (but originally german), Nick and Trudi from Auckland (Nick works for Golder!), Darryl and Evelyn from New Foundland. After staying the night in Giza City, we woke early for our tour out to thew pyramids and sphinx. It was a bit of a whirlwind tour unfortunately and for the first itme we felt much more like a mass tourist than travellers, especially as we had to go there in a tour coach. That’s the really cool thing about travelling in a truck, you get to mix in with the locals a lot more, especially as we’ve been doing quite a lot of camping also. The pyramids were very impressive, if completely overrun with people and we enjoyed going to see the Solar Boat, a 4600 year of wooden ship buried with King Khufu for travelling to the afterlife. Just so incredible to see a wooden boat in such good condition despite it’s age.

 Us in front of the Pyrimids of Giza

Pyramid and the Sphinx

We are now out in the Western Desert and I’m trying to write this (in Word) in the very bumpy truck as we head to Aswan. We’ve spent 3 nights camping out here, which has been really awesome. The first night was out in the Black Desert, near Bahairya Oasis. It’s a rocky dersert with lots of black basalt. Got a good 2 hour time exposure of us camping out inder the stars around the camp fire. The air is surprisingly clear out here, although sand does manage to get everywhere! The second night we spent in the White Desert which was really really cool – lots of strange eroded shapes, beautiful white limestone and we slept near an escarpment with a big sand dune under a crescent moon. Got visited during the night by a desert fox (very cute) and also some scarab beetles.

 Our first night in the Black Desert (timelapse 2 hours)

 Dave at Crystal Mountain, White Desert NP

 Strange eroded limestone shapes, White Desert

Dawn in the White Desert

Last night was spent on a roof top in Daklha Oasis after visiting a local artists house and also a 200 year old mud brick city, Al Qasr, complete with even a mud brick mosque and minaret. Our final night in the desert was spent in a Nubian Village on the West Bank of Aswan, overlooking the Nile Valley. Is a welcome change to see the green and water after the desert!

 Al Qasr mudbrick village, Dakhla Oasis

Local food at the Nubian village, West Bank, Aswan