Blogs from Western Desert, Egypt, Africa - page 6

Absolute full credit to those explorers who trekked through the desert exploring and mapping! It's really really hot, really really dusty and sandy and very hard work. And I did it in a truck! The heat wave has continued here, and we've just spend three nights and four days in the Western Desert. It's been absolutely amazing. Stunning scenery, distant horizons and more types of rock formations than I thought I would ever be interested in. The first night was camping out in the Western Desert about five hours drive out of Cairo. No need for tents, it doesn't exactly rain a lot out there, so it was an amazing night sleepin gon the sand under the stars. While the stars are unfamiliar here, with no Southern Cross to orient myself, it's an amazing experience waking ... 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

We have, now, established a rhythm to our camping. We try and find a place at about 4 pm (sun sets at 5.30) which leaves enough time to get sorted, do any dhobi, tend to any (small) car problems and get supper started. We eat early and go to bed early - very early by our normal UK timing! Then we get up very early at about 6 am when the sun is just about to poke its head above the rim of the desert. It takes us till about 8 am to get fed and watered and all packed up so that we are ready for the off. It all seems to work very well. Today was no exception but we reveled in the glorious views in the now still, warm sunshine. They were quite ... read more

Asyut-Oasis Circuit-CairoTom Griffithurl='/Videos/2628.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/2628.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'Sahara Desert In Arabic, sahara means 'desert'. So, Sahara Desert simply means 'Desert Desert'. Best stick with plain old Sahara, I reckon. This immense stretch of sand, rocks, dunes and nothingness reaches from the shores of Mauritania and Morocco, all the way to the Nile in Egypt and Sudan. It is not so much one desert, as many different ones, overlapping and merging to form the largest arid expanse on the planet. Egypt's main section of the Sahara lies to the west of the Nile Valley, and is known as the Western or Libyan Desert. Though largely a harsh and uninhabited environment, the Western Desert does contain a group of oases, each able to support agriculture,... read more