We survived the desert! It was amazing...I took a million pictures but they just can't capture the vastness or the scale of it. You will have to all go and see for yourselves one day...It was like being droppped on the moon, I felt as though I was on another planet.
We did a 3 day/2 night Desert safari through the black and white deserts...It was about 5 hours west of Cairo between The Baharia Oasis and the Frafara Oasis towards the Libyan border. We went through a company called Khalifa Expeditions which is run by Rose-Maria and Khaled Khalifa(she is Swiss and he is Egyptian). I read a great article praising one of their trips on the internet from a travel magazine and contacted them. They arranged a personalized tour for us so we could see everything we wanted.
The first day we were picked up in Cairo and driven 5 hours to their home in Baharia where we had an amazing lunch and met our travel companions, Paulo and his daughter Elena from Boston, our driver and cook Mohammed and Saban, and Rose-maria, our guide. The Desert used to be Sea and volcanoes 25 million years ago and as they dried up over time it left us with a variety of unique landscapes. We would drive for 2 minutes and be in a completely different landscape. We went from the white desert witch looked like an Arctic snowstorm passed over it(everything is white because it is chalk), to miles of massive bizarre shaped limestone and sandstone mountains, some looked like mushrooms, some had huge funny-shaped designs balancing on a thin 5 foot pillars...all eroded from the wind and rain. There was a mountain we climbed covered in crystal, large stretches of land covered in salt, the black desert which is jet black from volcanic eruptions. We visited small oasis's in the middle of nowhere where palm trees grew and water still flowed...one of them was surrounded by the remains of a Roman city (2500years old) and there were archaeological finds everywhere...the rocks we were walking on were actually broken pottery! There were remnants of houses, fossilized plants and wood. All I had to do was dig a foot into the sand and I'd find larger pottery pieces, I even found an almost intact mug. In the valleys of the white desert I found 2 arrowheads, and Paulo found some old tools including a stone knife that fit perfectly in your hand. There were fossilised seashells everywhere and at one place in the limestone cliffs we found a bunch of non-fossilised sea shells embedded in the rock, yet, it is so dry and sandy it is hard to believe water ever covered it.
We camped at night in the desert under the stars..which were so bright you could see the whole milky way We ate amazing Egyptian food! On the second day we rode Camels for 4 hours. Rose-Maria breeds her own camels and they are so sweet and gentle. They even had a bunch of baby camels along with their mother's following us on the trek. The babies were so cute..very curious and sociable. They kept nussling our necks and loved to be petted. There was one Male camel along, the father to all the babies, who was in heat...he did the strangest thing with this howling/grunting noise and his tongue would puff up, they had to tie his legs so he couldn't stand up when we stopped for lunch or else he would mount the ladies....I guess camel turn-on's are a little different. There was even a pregnant Camel with us(she was big!)
Another thing about the desert is that it is dead quiet...no insects, no birds, no rustling leaves or water running...no traffic or the sounds of your house...just deafening silence, and pitch black at night until the moon rises. We even climbed the cliffs and watch the sunset.
We got back to Rose-maria's house at 4pm yesterday and stayed there last night...
Best. Shower. Ever.
We took a taxi back to Cairo this morning and just arrived an hour ago...I keep thinking I'll get used to the scary traffic but am still white-knuckling it...it is truly frightening driving on these roads. They drive so reckless and there are no seatbelts...I keep picturing myself flying through the windshield Our driver Mohammed was very nice though, he even took us to help us buy oranges on the way back to the Hotel. We left our bags with the Hilton today for a few hours and are going to take a night sleeper train to Aswan tonight at 8pm. Paulo and Elena will be on the same train so we have plans to meet up for dinner. But for now, we plan to sun tan by the pool and relax to recover from all the relaxing.
Hopefully all is well in Calgary! Stay Warm!!!! Below is video of Sue mounting her camel...
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