Our last adventure in Egypt….the White Desert

 Our last adventure in Egypt was a visit to the White Desert National Park which was a 4 hour drive from Cairo. We had a driver take us so far and then met a driver to take us into the park by 4 x 4. 

As we drive out of the city it was apparent that the city is on the edge of the desert and is rapidly expanding…

There is desert just outside Cairo that stretches for 100s of kilometres…

Everywhere there were new apartment buildings, again hundreds and hundreds…

Even building brand new cities to accommodate the millions of people from across the country that are moving closer to Cairo for work. We were told that 5 million people a week come to the city to work and then go back to the more rural areas in the weekends.

 

Some of the scenes along the highway…

The highways are lined with people waiting for buses…

We saw lots of women sitting in the shade…

Or selling things like tissues…

We did see some more upscale developments as well…

After a long drive we were greeted with a typical Egyptian lunch which Don obviously enjoyed.

And a lunch companion, there are cats everywhere in Egypt…

We met our new driver who started another long drive into the desert. We stopped at another place which was an oasis with a lot of running water. It was nice to sit with our feet in the water as we were served tea and fresh mango…

The White Desert is a national park in the Sahara Desert famous for its surreal wind- carved chalk rock formations. The landscape’s geology is rooted in its past as a seabed, with the formations being remnants of ancient limestone and chalk layers shaped by wind erosion over million of years.

Far away it looks like snow glistening in the sand and it feels rather other worldly.

There are some popular rocks like this one which is called “ Chicken Rock”

We met a group of Japanese tourists here who were taking a lot of pictures, other than this group we saw very few people over the many miles we travelled that day.

There is very little greenery in the desert but we came across the remains of an ancient well that still had enough moisture to support it.

We then drove further into the desert and the driver would drive very quickly up and down the sand dunes…

The landscapes were spectacular…

We arrived at our camping spot for the night just before sunset…

We set up camp and the driver cooked us a delicious meal of chicken and vegetables over the fire…

Our accommodations for the night…cozy and got rather cold as the night went on.

Before supper Don took a rest in the main tent where we ate…

The other tent held supplies…

The next morning we were up early to visit other parts of the desert but not before helping another 4 x 4 which wouldn’t start…

We stopped at Crystal Mountain where large pieces of quartz lay everywhere…

Again we went zoom, zoom…

Stopped for some pictures…

Went by an old Bedouin village that had been abandoned for lack of water…

 Near the White Desert there is also a smaller Black Desert that gets its name from a layer of black volcanic stones that pepper its sandy surfaces…

Our driver like a lot of Egyptians is a smoker so whenever we stopped he had a smoke and often a chat with Don. Interestingly the Egyptian men all loved Don…big smiles and hugs all the time! 

A goodbye and  then back to meet our other driver to take us back to the city, even though this was a long journey the experience of driving and sleeping in the desert was definitely a highlight of our trip.

The men we met who worked at these jobs are very poor and work very hard for very little money…kindness and a good tip goes a long way! 

So back to the city and then onward to our next country Jordan.