The Desert Oases - Part 1

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Day 47, Mon 12th Mar:
I was due to catch a train in the morning, but first I went to meet Mahmut with whom I had been earnestly talking the evening before on the subject of Islam and the Koran. Mahmut came across as a very intelligent and thoughtful man who spoke about religious and philosophical ideas very rationally and clearly. I had said that I believed in the power of the mind to determine the right course of action in life, and Mahmut had replied that that was not incompatible with what was written in the Koran as God had given us minds specifically for the purpose of thinking. Thus, according to Mahmut, thinking for oneself is actually encouraged, and not discouraged, by Islam. Mahmut and I went and ate together at a simple restaurant and we spoke for over two hours about such ideas before I finally had to catch my train.
I alighted the train (which cost 32 EGP = 4.50 Euros) at Assyut, a town about five hours north of Luxor, and I spent a few hours exploring the bustling streets and finding a meal before boarding a bus at 10pm headed south-west for Dakhla (24 EGP = 1.50 Euros), the first oasis in the desert-land west of Luxor.

Day 48, Tue 13th Mar:
I arrived in Mut, the main village in the Dakhla Oasis, at 4.30 in the morning and initially drank tea at a cafe near where I'd been dropped off. I then decided that I needed more sleep and so, with the help of a man from the cafe, I found a hotel quite close by (25 EGP = 4 Euros) and slept until mid-morning.
I then explored the old, abandoned mud city of Mut which was collapsing in places and was fascinating for its dense and intricate layout, the houses jostling for space on a small hill, separated from one another by an elaborate network of narrow passages. I then crossed the ramshackle village towards some strange shapes I could see on the horizon. There I found what seemed to be the remains of a pottery in the form of an exposed but gentle hill scattered with broken pots and several half-buried domed brick kilns, as well as the remnants of some walls. At the high point of this ceramic cemetery I saw the figure of a man next to a small square building, the only complete structure there. He was wearing the traditional galabeeia (a shirt-like smock) and he raised an arm. I called out 'salaam' (the most common arabic greeting) and headed up the slope to meet the only other person in this desolate place. His name was Saleeya and he spoke almost no english, so it was a test of my arabic from the beginning. I gathered that he lived in this hut, but also in the mountains nearby sometimes. He offered me a tea and I accepted. I sat looking across modern day Mut and beyond it to the distant desert mountains while he gathered sticks to make a fire on which he boiled some water in a tiny metal jug with a long handle on its side. When the tea was made he joined me and I tried to talk in arabic, not always successfully, but enough for me to gather some new words. Saleeya then ducked into the hut and reappeared with a home-made sheesha. I had seen sheeshas since at least Turkey in many coffee shops. They are normally a tall glass vessel with a wide belly at the bottom and a narrow neck on top of which burns a coal and some kind of flavoured 'tobacco'. The sheesha contains water and a pipe stems from the air gap above it so that the smoke can be inhaled through the water, to cool it, and up the pipe. Saleeya's sheesha was home-made from a large jar and bits of pipe which might have come from a car, but despite its makeshift appearance the contraption worked!
I parted company with Saleeya, offering him some money for the tea which he refused, and made my way back into Mut to find some dinner.

Day 49, Wed 14th Mar:
I spent all day writing. This blog is a lot of work you know!

Day 50, Thur 15th Mar:
I had decided to visit Al Quasr for the day, a small town in the oasis which was on the itinerary of a day tour which the hotel manager had offered me for 250 EGP (38 Euros), and which I had declined to take. Looking for the bus departure point I had the good fortune to meet another, in fact, the only other, westerner; Pavel from the Czech Republic. He was traveling the same route as me, but in reverse, so we swapped knowledge, which included the fact that there was a friendly and cheap hotel in Al Quasr. This surprised me as I had thought Al Quasr to be just a small village unlikely to have a hotel, and so after our chat I went back to my hotel and checked out, a new plan in my mind. I soon found the street from which minibuses departed to other parts of the oasis and I boarded the very crowded one headed for Al Quasr. It cost me a mere 75 piastres (= 0.10 Euros) and took half an hour. Thanks to a successful arabic-english conversation between me, the driver and several of the passengers I was dropped off right outside the hotel which had been recommended by Pavel.
The hotel was a very basic affair run by a very kind man called, of course, Mohammed, who had no intention of persuading me to take numerous tours, or to stay for longer than I intended, but instead freely gave me the information I needed such as what to see and do, and when buses ran. It was the opposite approach to that of the hotel staff in Mut; Mohammed was pure kindness.
In the afternoon I explored Al Quasr's uninhabited old city which was much more extensive than that of Mut, although it was essentially the same style of mud-brick building. The most notable feature there was an 11th or 12th century minaret, its mosque having disappeared a long time ago. Twice behind unlocked doors I discovered an animal-driven mill, long since abandoned. Having navigated my way through the labyrinth of alleyways between the old houses I reached the outer wall of the old town and after a further short walk I was looking at the rocky desert. I really had the sense of being on the edge of a great barren wilderness.

Day 51, Fri 16th Mar:
Initially on this day I had intended to hire a bicycle on which to go and see a place called Deil Al Hagar Temple and some ancient burials, but instead I was persuaded by a man in the tea shop beneath the hotel to take a minibus tour instead for 50EGP (7.50 Euros). My driver, Zachariah, spoke no English, and his mate, Ahmed, who came along for the ride, spoke very little, so it was not the best tour. The Deil Al Hagar Temple was a roman construction a few kilometers out in the desert and decorated with inscriptions in the Ancient Egyptian style with Roman gods and leaders in place of Ancient Egyptian ones. The place was quite small with a simple rectangular perimeter wall and a few pillared doorways being all that remained.
A few kilometers from the temple amongst some rocky outcrops in the desert was Muz-Waka, the site of several Roman-era burials. Some bodies were visible through the rough grave entrances on the rocky slope, and they were clearly well preserved thanks to 2000 years of absolutely dry conditions. They had survived just like the mummies, which is what they are locally known as.
That afternoon I took a walk to the outskirts of Al Quasr to an area of fields surrounding a lake. Beyond this I once again found myself on the edge of the sandy desert, a reminder of the isolation and vulnerability of the oasis.
Early evening came, as it always does, and I boarded a bus to the next oasis north: Farafra. This cost me 15EGP (22 Euros), which was all I had left in my pocket. I just had to hope I would find a way to survive until the next bank, and there was little sign of them in this desert land!
Three-and-a-half hours later I arrived in Farafra where I found a hotel. I was hoping that a hotel would be organised enough to accept a visa card, but this was not the case. They would take some other currencies, but the english pounds I had were in coins, and they would only accept notes. The problem was eventually solved thanks to some helpful people at the local cafe who knew a man who would change coins. Someone phoned him and, when he appeared, he introduced himself as Mr. Socks, on account of his camel-hair sock shop, which also stocked gloves, scarves, hats and pullovers, all made of camel-hair. With the money in my hand now being Egyptian, I could afford to pay for my hotel (20EGP = 3 Euros) and the bus next day to the next oasis, Bahariya where, the hotel manager assured me, there was a bank. It had been a close call, running out of money in the desert, but now I felt that it was going to be alright again the next day.

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