Desert Safari

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I spent the morning debating whether to go back to Cairo that night and once I deceided I would, I packed my bag and checked out of the Palm Trees Hotel. I got some lunch and then went back for the desert safari. It turned out there was 9 of us doing the desert safari, but I was the only one not camping out in the desert.

At first there was just one jeep, whihc looked in reasonable condition. This battered old Toyota then pulled in and was to be our second jeep. It didn't look like it would make it to the desert, never mind drive through it. Of course, this was the jeep I ended up in.

As great as Wadi Rum in Jordan was, this was proper desert. Sand dune mountains roling on top of each other as far as the eye could see. Our jeep took a few attempts to get up a couple of them. At our first stop, we were given sandboards to try board down the dunes. My attempts weren't overly successful landing on my arse within 5 seconds both times. (Eamo Mac would have been so ashamed).

We stopped at a couple of oases as well, which if I had known about I would have brought some shorts. Instead, I climbed up to the top of one of the mountain/dunes and ran back down. It felt just like Brittas Bay. Some Egyptians stopped beside us and we took them on in a game of beach football, which we were fairly schooled in.

We then went up and down a few more mountainous dunes until we reached the top of one and looked down to what must have been a 100m drop. Despite our jeep seemingly about to fall apart, our driver went ahead down the dune and we survived somehow. Our jeep didn't though and unsurprisingly, we had to be towed back to the town.

After this unexpected delay, I had just about enough time to get my bag, get some food and catch the 10 hour night bus back to Cairo.

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