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Adventure EGYPT :
Desert Adventure Tours In Egypt
Egypt's
Western Desert
Egypt’s Western Desert is hard to describe in one go. It is huge. It is
one of the most arid regions on earth, in fact, one of our last
frontiers. German, English, and Italian tourists have been basking in
its hot springs and exploring its ancient artifacts for centuries. It
was primarily their explorers who opened it up to the world in the 19th
century. Americans seem to think they had no part in its development,
but a rag tag group of Marines and sailors crossed the Western Desert
from Alexandria to Derna (in Libya) in 1805 in one of the most amazing
military expeditions in history. We don’t talk about it much (which is
too bad), but Derna was the first Marine battle on foreign soil and the
sword worn by marines at full dress today commemorates "the shores of
Tripoli."
History alone may not lure a traveler to the Western Desert, but will!
This is adventure offered up in degrees so there is something for
everyone: mild for those who insist on a good shower and a swimming pool
at the end of the day; strong for those who like to go into the
wilderness to camp, but know that the paved road and the high tension
lines are nearby; or intense, where one tempts the fates and carries all
the water, gasoline, and food necessary for a 10-to-24-day
step-off-the-edge-of-the-earth escapade. Any one of these journeys is
worth putting on your wish list.
Mild: Loop the Loop to the Oases
For the traveler who likes a little bit of adventure, but wants it
peppered with modern conveniences, a trip around the loop road will
bring four major oases into focus. The loop swings out of the Nile
Valley near Cairo and returns to the river near Luxor. It is a 700 mile
journey that leads to four distinctly different worlds filled with
fascinating desert people, antiquities, mysteries, and newly built
resorts. The first oasis on the loop road, Baharia Oasis, is 194 miles
from Cairo.
Recently a great ‘discovery’ was made here. Hundreds and hundreds of
ancient mummies were uncovered, most adorned with precious gold jewelry
and amulets. Dubbed the Valley of the Golden Mummies, the area is now
under intensive excavation and a tomb was actually opened for the first
time on the Discovery channel a few months ago. But Baharia is more that
golden mummies, which the world will soon see are a-dime-a-dozen in
almost every oasis in this desert (after all it, like the Nile Valley,
the desert has had thousands of years of history). Baharia’s greatest
treasure is its physical environment. The sand is golden! A string of
small hills runs in an almost perfect line from north to south, most
topped by black basalt stone. Both the hills and the basalt are gifts of
an ancient geological upheaval. Amid the hills is the Black Desert where
the golden sand is littered with tiny black stones. Hard on your tires,
but spectacular to your eyes, there are dozens and dozens of places to
camp.
In contrast to Baharia, Farafra Oasis, another hundred miles along the
route, has a White Desert. Giant white chalk monoliths rise from a pure
white desert floor, while smaller outcroppings looking like donkeys,
camels, and Bedouin, enchant the visitor with their humor. Here one can
roam off-road without too much fear of getting lost. One can pitch camp
under Snoopy the dog or a napping Mexican with a huge sombrero. Couple
these wonders with the pure air of the desert, the almost lack of sound
(except for the wind), and how can one not think that this is paradise!
Farafra holds the most mysteries in the desert. It was in Farafra that
Cambyses, the Persian conqueror of ancient Egypt, lost an army. 50,000
strong they set off from ancient Thebes (modern Luxor) to attack the
Oracle at Siwa Oasis. They never got there. Herodotus said a sandstorm
vanquished this army. Historians have been looking for it ever since.
Modern technology still cannot find it.
Dakhla Oasis was a breadbasket of the Roman Empire. It is lush with
farmland growing vegetables and fruits in the iron-rich red earth. Here
medieval mudbrick Islamic villages are perched on hills with
impenetrable, sheer-sided outer protective walls. The hot springs, where
hot water gushes up from deep in the earth and spills into an awaiting
trough, allows the traveler to lay back and float in a mist of steam
while looking up into a canopy of stars. All the oases have these
intoxicating hot springs. They are more controlled in Dakhla. So are the
Bedouin camps, where the young boys will beat their drums and sing
around a small fire in the evening. Dakhla is where one shoots off to
the deep desert. In the ancient past it was often invaded by desert
tribes who carried off its camels and women. So the people of Dakhla
went into the desert and destroyed the water wells for a journey of five
days. That stopped the invasions.
Kharga Oasis is the last oasis on the loop before the Nile Valley. It
seems to have had the longest association with ancient Egypt. It is also
the place where Christians were banished in the 4th and 5th centuries
and as a souvenir of the time boasts one of the largest ancient
Christian cemeteries in the world: Bagawat. Kharga also claims the first
five star resort with swimming pool and air conditioning. At first
glance Kharga looks disappointing for its main village is a replica of a
Nile Valley town, but one must dig deeper.
Kharga Oasis’s greatest treasures, in addition to its marching rows of
crescent sand dunes, are the Roman fortresses scattered along a famous
slaver’s road called the Darb el Arbain, the 40 Days’ Road. Roman
scholars marvel at the rubble of fortresses in Jordan and Iraq that
stand only a few meters high. Here in Egypt’s Western Desert, the
unexplored fortresses rise to four and five stories. And there are
dozens of them. To visit the fortresses and their surrounding cemeteries
is a 4x4 adventure. This is why all terrain vehicles were invented. With
a local guide in tow, one leaves the asphalt and heads into the desert
dodging huge multi-sided sand dunes called whale dunes. The silence,
while standing in front of an ancient fort, hurts the ears. The
imagination is boggled while trying to grasp the possibility that once
20,000 people lived in this remote spot, or that hundreds and hundreds
of caravans pushing tens of thousands of slaves stopped for water and
rest.
Siwa Oasis is not on the loop, which makes it difficult to visit when
trying to tour as many of Egypt’s tempting oases as possible. Yet Siwa
is the most intoxicating; its people the most independent and unique.
All of its ancient villages are perched on huge desert rocks which rise
above seas of swaying palm trees. Siwa is known for its dates and its
olives. If you want extra virgin olive oil, Siwa is the place. The press
is done by hand with a donkey walking round and round grinding the
olives between two massive stones.
Siwa is the seat of the ancient Oracle of Amun for whom Alexander the
Great made his desert trek. It is also the place where desert jewelry,
baskets, dresses, and traditions remain strong. A Siwa basket is a
treasure to die for. A Siwan woman’s dress has been the hit of cocktail
parties in fashionable New York drawing rooms for decades.
To "do" the loop road a traveler needs 8-10 days, a good car, a map, and
a sense of adventure. To add Siwa you need 4-5 days more. The on road
travel can easily be done without a guide, it is a single road going to
a specific place. Once in the different oases one may sign up for day
tours into the desert. If doing it alone is a bit too adventuresome,
there are tour companies in Egypt and on the Internet who offer desert
travel at good prices.
Strong: Hiking and Camel Safari
If the short trip through the desert to distant forts is not enough to
satiate your lust for off road adventure, there are three other ways you
can get an adrenaline rush and a sense of being an explorer without too
much danger: day-tripping in a 4x4, desert hiking on foot, and a genuine
Bedouin led camel safari. Ex pat’s living in Egypt go into the Western
Desert on 4x4 weekend trips all the time. You can do the same on a day
off from a regular Nile Valley tour. Give up a shopping trip and head
for the desert for a day. One of the most exciting day excursions is
fossil hunting near Fayoum oasis, close to Cairo. In the deserts around
Fayoum you will find the richest bone beds in the world (arguable):
ancient rhinos, miniature elephants, early primates, and an ancient
whale with feet! As with all special places, look but don’t touch and
definitely don’t carry away!
If you love birds, then take a day to go birding in Egypt. There are
companies that deal exclusively with watching and enjoying birds in all
sizes. Egypt is on the major flyway from Europe to Africa and the birds
are not to be believed. This is great independent adventure and tour
companies in Cairo will accommodate the traveler for any and all of
them.
There is at least one tour group that offers hiking. Hiking trips are
usually 7-10 day jaunts where hikers walk 10 to 14 miles a day through
pristine terrain. Their belongings and accommodations are carted ahead
of them and a hot meal and relaxing evening awaits the walker at the end
of each day.
If you want to feel like all the great explorers who came before, then a
camel safari is the greatest adventure in the Western Desert. Camel
safaris can be anything from a few hours in the desert to a 14 day
expedition. This is as close to 19th century explorers as you are going
to get in North Africa.
Neither hiking nor camel riding are do-it-yourself items. You need the
safari companies. Some of the best are found in the desert (as opposed
to the Nile Valley agencies who end up hiring the local guys), where
Bedouin, who once roamed the caravan trails, are now taking tourists to
immaculate, astonishing sites like desert caves and fossilized
waterfalls.
Deep Desert Extreme
For those looking for an intense extreme experience, the wild,
uninhabited southwestern desert awaits. This is deep desert travel: no
water, no roads, no gasoline, no food. You lug it with you. Good guides
are a must and 10-24 days (without a bath) are needed. You will go where
few have gone. There are three major destinations to a deep desert
journey: Gebel Uwaynat, Gilf Kebir, and the Great Sand Sea.
Gebel Uwaynat straddles the border between Egypt, the Sudan, and Libya,
with sections of the mountain cascading into each country. It is a
strange and mysterious place. Ancient nomads have left thousands of rock
art images in Uwaynat’s valleys. They are the most eastern of a chain
that stretches across the North African continent. Modern armies have
left land mines. Border patrols do not take lightly to people who have
mistakenly crossed into their country. This is a smuggler’s paradise, so
extreme caution is necessary.
The Gilf Kebir, north of Uwaynat, is a huge plateau with dozens of
valleys digging into its sides, some with red sand dunes. This is the
spot where the young heroine in The English Patient lay in the Cave of
Swimmers dying while her Hungarian lover tried to save her. The story is
false. Both the cave and the Hungarian are real. The cave is
spectacular. The Hungarian is the illustrious and colorful Count
Ladislaus Almasy who explored this desert for decades, trying to
discover its exotic mysteries. In World War II, Almasy led two German
spies through the Western Desert, up and over the Gilf Kebir and through
Dakhla and Kharga to the Nile Valley. The spies lived in Cairo on a
house boat while they scouted out the British. All of this spy business
was featured in the book The Key to Rebecca.
The Great Sand Sea is a wasteland. It is hundreds of miles of dunes on
top of dunes on top of dunes. Some of these dunes are almost 100 miles
long. Here you climb up one side with your 4x4 and slide down the other
side, like a roller coaster. At night you camp on the dunes and look at
the stars, which you can almost touch. For a visual dessert, there is
the exotic area of silica glass, that strange phenomenon believed to
have been created when a huge meteorite hit the earth and heated the
sand with such intensity that it turned to glass. Here again, look,
touch if you must, but as tempting as it is, leave it behind when you
depart. I know that is hard to do, even the ancient Egyptians could not
do it. Recently it has been proven that the center stone of the pectoral
necklace around the mummy of King Tutankamun is nothing other than the
silica green glass of the Great Sand Sea.
These types of journeys require good guides and good equipment. They
don’t require the perfect body, the perfect age, or perfect health
(except for hiking, which does require conditioning). The ‘perfect’ car
does the work most of the time, so big bellies and canes are possible.
All sizes and shapes of travelers come to the desert. All ages come. At
96, Theodore Monod, one of the world’s great experts on the Libyan
Desert, was still traveling there. Don’t let the "fitness gurus"
discourage you! So, welcome to a new world: a world of adventure and
excitement,
Have your Western Desert Adventure in 2001!
Join Cassandra Vivian author of The Western Desert of Egypt: An
Explorer's Handbook on an expedition to the southern portion of the
Western Desert. Cost of trip: US$2,850. (if we get 12 people, $2400)
Cairo to Cairo Dates March 3-18 for 16 days Cairo, Dakhla, Mud Pan, Gilf
Kebir (Wadi Almasy, Wadi Wassa, Shaw’s prehistoric cave, Wadi el Furaq,
western Gilf, Kemal el Din’s Monument), Clayton Craters, Peter and Paul
mountains, Karkur Talh, Uweinat area, Beacon Hill, Bir Sahara and
Tarfawi, Nusab el Bagoum, Bir Kuseiba, Darb el Arba’in, Sin el Kaddab,
Aswan.
Gilf Kebir is a huge plateau near the border of Libya, north of Gebel
Uwaynat. We will climb and skirt the eastern side, venture into a few
valleys, cut through the Wadi Wassa to the western side.
Shaw’s Cave: This is not the Cave of Swimmers from The English Patient.
It is a second cave found on the western side of the Gilf. The Cave of
Swimmers is too far north for this expedition.
Between the Gilf and Uwaynat We will visit the Kamal el Din’s Monument,
Clayton Craters, Peter and Paul mountains.
Karkur Talh in Gebel Uwaynat The mountain (Uwaynat) is the large
mountain along the southwestern border between Egypt and the Sudan and
Egypt and Libya. There are thousands and thousands of rock art images in
this area. However, only one valley, Karkur Talh is in Egypt and
accessible to us. That limits the possibilities. Karkur Talh has
sufficient images.
Crossing to the Nile: We will travel east to Bir Sahara and Tarfawi to
reach the Darb al-Arbain.
Darb al-Arbain: We will reach this famous slaver’s route in the south
near Shab, travel north to near Kharga Oasis, passing a number of oases.
While on the Darb we will make several detours to visit additional sites
like the Nabta Playa.
Karkur and Dunqul: On our way to Aswan we will visit several oases and
possibly an ancient Egyptian quarry.
Route and itinerary are subject to weather, travel conditions, political
climate, and other problems and emergencies. Be patient, this is a true
desert expedition. You will see amazing things. This trip is not for the
squeamish, the sick, or the difficult person with demands. It is for the
adventurer willing to adapt to the changes and enjoy the desert.
Travel will be by at least two 4x4 vehicles, 3 to 4 persons per vehicle
(plus driver). Travel is mostly off-road. This is true desert
wilderness: no road, no phone, no gas, no water, nothing, nothing,
nothing.
Travelers must provide a photocopy of the data passport page with photo
and expiration date with payment. Bring an extra one with you in case of
emergency.
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Cairo
Bahariya Road
White Desert
Akabat Mountain
White Desert
White Desert
Camping
White Desert
White Desert
Crystal Mountain
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