Page 15: Egypt - Black and White Deserts

The Black and White Deserts

Today, we're up at the crack of dawn.  We're off for a day and night in the Black and White Deserts, sleeping under the stars! Our guide and driver are joined by a third team member:  our cook!

The desert is a beautiful place.

 The Black Desert

The mountains in the Black Desert are covered with dark volcanic material from a long ago eruption - that's what gives the desert its name.

It's a long drive through the desert. We explore a bit, but are quickly on our way.

Around lunch time, we stop at what they call a "cantine". This is what they call the small way stations that can be found along the way and where travelers can get a meal and drink and use the "facilities". I have to say that I would much prefer not using the "facilities" because they are very nasty.

At the way station, there is a cement water tank. Our guide tells me I should don my bathing suit and go for a swim. That's the last thing I want to do so I settle for dipping my feet in - very nice!

This is the "cantine" - you sit on the pillow and dip your feet in the water that runs throughout the small building - quite refreshing.

While we are here our cook prepares the evening meal in the kitchen, cutting raw chicken, along with vegetables on the cement counter top. We will be eating and sleeping in the great outdoors tonight.

After lunch, we're back on the road. All of a sudden we come to the top of a large hill and the view ahead is breathtaking! Its the White Desert in all its beauty!

Unfortunately, this photo does not do it justice.

By now, another Jeep has joined us along with two American tourists. Their tour guide wants to stick with us because their Jeep is conking out. 

Bill and I are just so excited at what we see that all we want to do is play in this beautiful place. We walk all the way down the hill and then realize that if our party leaves we're on our own in the middle of nowhere!  

Oh well, we shrug it off and decide to have fun.  Here's Bill walking like and Egyptian!

I give it a try, but let's face it, Bill's better at it than I am!

The White Desert is part of the Sahara Desert and is one of Egypt's national parks. It is covered with giant chalk rock formations created by sand storms.
They are beautiful.

The formations are like clouds - they come in all shapes and sizes. This one we called the chicken and the egg! Ow...

It's a magical place, like no other we've ever seen.  

The sun sets early and quickly in the desert. By 5 pm, it's time to set up camp and have dinner. Our cook cooks the vegetables and rice on a bunsen burner and cooks the chicken on a small BBQ. The tourist from the other Jeep join us for dinner and afterwards we are treated to a small concert by our driver and cook who sing traditional songs and play the drums. It's very special and intimate.

Our camp is surrounded by these desert foxes who have been attracted by the smell of our dinner. 

When we are finished eating, the cook throws our bones to the foxes who devour them noisily.  After that, everything is put away and any food or garbage is hung up high on poles where they cannot be reached by animals.

As you can well guess, there are no "facilities" here. I just have to go about 100 feet away from our camp to where there is the nearest chalk formation that can hide me from our campers that have settled near us. Thank goodness I brought a huge shawl that Bill holds up around me to provide some privacy. The hundreds of little bright eyes watching our every step (foxes) can be quite disconcerting!

Bill spends most of the night awake looking at shooting stars, but I wake up quite refreshed to this beautiful site.

Here is where Bill and I slept with an old sleeping bag for cover. Our guide slept on the roof of the Jeep and the other two slept on the sand on the other side of the Jeep - not 5 star accommodations, but quite an experience!

Today, we head back to Cairo.  Tomorrow we fly to Luxor to begin our Nile cruise!