Blogs from Dakhla Oasis, Western Desert, Egypt, Africa

Ripulitomi per bene e tolti svariati etti di soffice sabbia accumulatisi nelle mie scarpe, decido di continuare il viaggio attraverso l'Egitto seguendo un percorso alternativo rispetto a quello consueto e molto piu' trafficato che risale verso Sud lungo il corso del Nilo: visitero' una collana di oasi sparse nel deserto che dovrebbero, secondo i piani del governo, creare una "Nuova Valle" che possa contribuire allo sviluppo del paese con attivita' produttive e nuove citta' da popolare. Quasi niente di tutto cio' si e' ovviamente realizzato e la vita da queste parti continua a scorrere lenta e tranquilla, con strade polverose e desolate percorse solamente da qualche fastidiosa motocicletta di fabbricazione cinese, indegne sostitute dei piu' nobili ma meno pratici cammelli dromedari. L'oasi di Bahariya e' la piu' facilmente raggiungibile dal Cairo ma non offre grandi attrattive ... read more

DAY 27 We are taking a mini van ride for about 8 hours from Luxor to Dakhla in the Egyptian Sahara Desert. The landscape for the most part is that of desert and sand / rock mountains. There are more checkpoints then there are houses out here. There was one village that we stopped to have lunch. Our group leader said there weren't any nice cafes to have lunch so we could have sandwiches. He went and got the lunch. Perhaps we may not have eaten anything if we had seen the preparation and there are so many flies. Anyway, we had eggplant pita and falafel pita. The only choices and quite tasty and no side effects. One of the stops along the way is to a burial site dating back to the roman times. The ... read more

I need a bath!!! This was going to be our last night in the desert and our first opportunity for an actual shower. Yippie !! We were moving out of the desert itself and instead going to be spending the night in the Oasis town of Dakhla. Even in ‘winter’ as they called it - The Desert was piercingly hot during the day and freezing cold at night. Sitting in the truck for our drive with nothing but warm Desert air being ventilated through the open windows made most of us almost catatonic, leaving us with little or no energy to talk let alone do anything upon reaching our destination. Our first order of business after lunch was finished was to determine the shower roster for the group. There was only one bathroom in place we ... read more

There are four main oasis's in the Western Desert on route from Cairo (lower egypt) and Luxor (upper egypt) with everything from hotsprings, white sand, black sand deserts, date, fig, and olive trees to ancient mud and brick cities. It sounds much better than it actually was! We took a bus from Cairo five hours south to the Bahariah Oasis. Immediately after getting off the bus, we found ourselves surrounded with touts, hotel owners and staff who come to the bus to get people into their hotels. Most travellers hate these guys with a passion because they're SO pushy. But we try to use them to our adavantage and get a bidding war going between them. It can be pretty entertaining if you work it right. So after lots of arguing and shouting we decided to ... read more