Wonderful (or Was it) Western Desert

Cairo marked the end of the road for a substantial part of our group. Twelve of the original party were saying goodbye here and we were sad to lose a few like minded souls. We had always had someone to chat to, play cards with, or have a beer or two with. The first part of the tour had gone well but we were rather apprehensive about the next bit and the new members of our group. A sighting of 4 rather unenthusiastic souls in the lobby did nothing to improve our outlook. After the night of Karoke we boarded the truck and to our delight the new 5 were not those we’d spotted the night before. They were, while quiet initially, a similarly fantastic bunch to the lot we had left behind. And just as well, we had 3 days with them and nothing else but desert. It’s ironic that we were drawn to see a place where there’s nothing much to see. So many people head out to see the western desert, but for the most part there’s absolutely nothing to see. Perhaps it’s the lack of landscape that becomes the attraction, and the vastness of that nothingness. Unfortunately this seemed lost on at least two of my companions (Adam and Kelly) who were heard saying multiple times, “ is this it?” (Photo - The Desert and I, Credit - Adam.)


The days were all rather similar and as such the desert experience has merged into one incredibly long drive. Day 1, 12 hours through the white desert to our campsite amongst strange whitish limestone formations some of which Kel described as mushrooms. This was the 1st true camping of the trip and apart from Pasq who had a wolf circling him most of the night, we all had a great time sleeping out under the stars. Day 2 - A million hours drive through the black desert, which was undiscernible from the white desert, to a tiny desert oasis (read really dusty, dirt town) of unmemorable name. Stopped to look at an art gallery/house on the way where Adam was disappointed with the watercolour prices. Incredibly we found some wifi from the roof where we sleep that night and caught up on a few emails. Day 3 - a least a million hours drive to a Nubian village, just across the Nile from Aswan. Yes we had made it back to the Nile and quite a few members of the group were stoked to be back near civilisation, and flushing loos.