The Desert

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The Egyptian Sahara Desert is a place of desolation, extreme heat and a few very unique areas. Traveling across it is no fun whatsoever. An interesting fact about Egypt is that 95% of the country is totally inhospitable. Nowadays of course, some people live in that expanse given power and water, but even today 95% of the countries population resides in 5% of the country, awarding it with the worldwide rank of number one in population density. I glanced at that last statistic in my guidebook the other day and was genuinely surprised as I previously thought it would be someplace like Japan.

My main man Ishmael the local downtown street tout who has been organizing most of my activities here and has yet to rip me off (well sort of) hopped in a cab with me and shipped me off by bus to the Bahariyya Oasis. From the limited research I did, the Siwa Oasis further west seemed better, but given my time constraints and the availability of buses (buses to Siwa route through Alexandria and then south) I instead opted for Bahariyya. The trip started off pleasantly enough but finally, after 11 months on the road I was on a public bus that severely broke down and was beyond repair. Many people might be surprised to learn this is actually the first bus breakdown I've had the misfortune of experiencing. Unless there's something I've forgotten about (and I'm not including various other cars and trucks) this was definitely my first bus breakdown. It couldn't have come at a better time either, stranded in the middle of the desert in the heat of the day.

We waited hours for a new bus to arrive. All I can say is that I was sure thankful for the era of mobile phones, as it could have been worse if any kind of walking were to take place. Even though we were in a bus and shaded, the heat is so scorching, simply sitting in your seat necessitates the consumption of astounding amounts of water. Most people left the bus in order to curl up in the limited shade that the west side of the vehicle had to offer and try to get wind on their faces, which was fine with me since there were then fewer bodies inside. I managed to finally finish the sixth installment of Robert Jordan where like Ryan, I was almost shaking at the climax in anticipation of what was to come. Furthermore I have no clue how the local women deal with the heat, one woman on my bus had a full veil, pants, long sleeve shirt of course and even gloves. It was all she could do to maneuver her water bottle behind her veil for the occasional sip of water. Bus rides, simply put, are unbearable. I haven't had any air conditioning on them yet so that's probably a big reason I can't really handle them. The floor of the bus gets so hot you can't touch it with bare skin. I'm assuming that is either from the heat of the road, engine, or whatever else. As a result you have to keep your bottles of water on your lap or they get so hot they're hard to drink. No chance of cold water whatsoever, I've quite grown accustomed at this point to bottle water flavored tea.

After the delay, I ended up at the Oasis about 6 hours late. The Oasis was not at all like I expected. Looking at what an Oasis actually is (a water source in a Desert) its not hard to believe. While I originally pictured pulling up to a pristine little pond in the middle of some scattered golden dunes, diving in and floating around in the heat with magic flying carpets whizzing by, camels grazing and genies dancing, the reality is that nowadays all the water is piped from wherever it originates underground to peoples homes. Furthermore, the Oasis itself which was once likely a fairly small area in the middle of a sandy wasteland with palm trees and vegetation, is much more sprawled out now that the water can be piped away some. So basically an Oasis is a dirty little town in the desert. However, its still shocking to see after hours of driving and becoming accustomed to the hot and dry nothingness of the Sahara Desert one finds a palm laden village with tiny houses and large date groves. Some water is moved about in trough systems and I did get a chance to swim in the Oasis water. The swim was sub par but still welcoming. Picture some sort of water processing plant on the side of the highway and then the guy driving my truck simply pulling over to tell me to get in quickly before anybody sees me. Jump in where? I'm trying to figure out if this is a good idea considering this is likely the drinking water for the entire town, but after only slight hesitation I dove in and swam around without getting sucked into the nearby building.

We drove around the town and saw what it had to offer, which really wasn't that much. It's interesting to see the stark contrast of small palm forests with the surrounding desert but that's about it. After that we drove out to see the Black Desert and the White Desert. They aren't quite as exciting as they sound, but still worth seeing. I think the sight of them was lessened a bit having been to other deserts on this trip already, but these were still really unique. The black desert is basically your stereotypical desert, but sprinkled with black sand and stones from nearby mountains caused by the wind. The white desert has a lot of salt deposits, thus giving it the appropriate name. We camped in the white desert, which was an awesome experience. This was by far the best part of my few days out there. Once the sun went down the salt looked almost crystal-like and as it got even darker you might think its even arctic like (at least I did). A very hot arctic. After a wonderful campfire meal I went to bed in what our driver very appropriately called "A million star hotel" and he couldn't have been more accurate. Stars over the desert are without a doubt something everyone should experience once in a lifetime. The nearby sand glows heat and stands out under the moon much like snow. I also realized at this time how nice it was to see all my northern hemisphere stars once again completely forgetting I had crossed the equator back to where I belong days earlier. I actually slept on a mat outside, with no blankets, in nothing but my underwear because it was still so hot at midnight when I finally fell asleep that it was the best option. It felt great. Surprisingly I slept really, really well even though our camp was invaded by foxes and some strange scarab-like bugs at some point.

The heat here and well, in all of Egypt so far is totally unbearable. Considering it's August an it’s the Sahara Desert that probably doesn't surprise anybody. However hot you might think it is, it's a lot hotter than that. I've never drank so much water and sweat so much in my entire life. I drink probably about 15l a day (about 10 x 1.5l bottles) and urinate maybe twice and what comes out is close to brown. I can’t honestly say I can even drink much more water than I have been. I’m happy to say however that the water here is cheap. 1.5 liter bottles of water are about 40 cents. Locals don’t even drink those opting instead for the water taps scattered around downtown. I didn’t expect that either since the city can barely afford to keep garbage off the streets, but at least there’s plenty of water. Even with the sheer volume of liquids I consume I'm totally dehydrated especially waking up in the morning to find I've sweat all night long with my bedding drenched and mouth dry. Starting today though I've put the rehydration mix into my water each morning for the electrolytes and other good things to help me get out the door. Anyone who wants to lose weight go to Egypt in August. I’m not sure how much I’ve sweated off, but aside from that the heat has destroyed my appetite. People back home who believe I have a worm can rest assured now since I don’t eat nearly as much anymore. If not, maybe the heat will destroy whatever it is.

After more exploring, downtown Cairo is quite interesting, there is a severe shortage of restaurants and a severe surplus of Dress and cake shops. This I thought strange since I can’t really picture women going dress shopping and cake eating at the same time. The temperature is off the charts even at 10pm at night and walking even 100m leaves me completely soaked and needing more water. The heat really does limit what you can do and see here. Other big cities I’ve really enjoyed just going for 3 or 4 hour walks (which are inevitable anyways when you realize something you need is across town) but here its like torture.

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Photos

Desert Camp
It's really, really, really easy to camp in the middle of the desert so long as you have lots of water. I wasn't actually here during the heat of the day either, I think we set all this up around 7pm and it was still way too hot to do anything besides sit and drink water.

Date Groves
I actually tried to eat one of them. Not a good idea. Unripe, or just not even close to being edible. Bleh.

White Desert
It's a desert. And White. The Korean geologist that was with me on the expedition went nuts. He filled bag after bag with rock samples before we could pull him away in order to keep on schedule.

Dawn in the Desert
It would have been better with a full moon, but either way I still had an awesome time and this photo was taken maybe 20 minutes before the sun came up over the horizon. It's at this exact moment, or close to it that the air is coolest, even still, at that point I was laying on a rug in the open in nothing but underwear sweating.

Black Desert
Much like how I envisioned the Aiel waste.

Marine Lush at the Oasis
Not much to see behind me other than vegetation in the middle of a desert. Not too sunburnt yet but that's likely to change very quickly. Figured it was far too long since I posted my last self-shot.