ALPHABET TRAVEL CHALLENGE

The Beauty Of Egypt’s White and Black Deserts

A-Z of my favorite travel destinations — E is for Egypt

Once you leave Cairo and its satellite towns and cities and head into the desert it becomes a barren wasteland. There’s nothing to see but the parched earth covered in sand ranging in color from shades of gold to dark brown and black with no vegetation visible… except around an oasis.

I arrived in Mandeesha, a small community built around an oasis which was lush with forests of date palm trees.

I checked into my lodging and then went out again to the nearby underground tombs that had vivid, colorful paintings on all the walls of the caves — no cameras allowed — but the hieroglyphics and paintings were not as well done as those I had seen in Cairo, Luxor, Alexandria, and Aswan.

We went to a small museum that had several mummies on display, all from one family. Again they were not as elaborate as those I had seen in the Cairo Museum, the death masks were made of limestone and covered in gold leaf and paint rather than solid gold. Still, it was interesting to see how these bodies had been preserved after thousands of years.

Instead of visiting more tombs, I opted for a visit to one of the hot springs. Yes, a dip in the hot springs in the desert where the temperature hovered around 40c. But it was basically a concrete pool of water with a large pipe gushing into it. The water was warm but not hot. We soaked in that for about half an hour, got dressed, and headed out again.

We went to the home of my driver Mokkid in a nearby village. We had sweet tea, grape leaves stuffed with rice, and breadsticks coated in sesame seeds which we dunked in our tea.

After a short visit with him and his 3 young sons, we headed out to the nearby English Mountain, named for the British soldiers that were stationed there in the 17th century. We climbed the rocks and I was awestruck by the view of the oasis and the nearby mountains, including Pyramid Mountain shaped like… a pyramid.

We headed out to the saltwater Oasis to have tea and watch the sunset, a great way to end the day by watching the orange glow reflected on the palm trees and the water.

The next day, every kilometer we drove through the hot, dusty, barren desert I kept wondering, “is this the white desert? Is this what everyone talks about (I don’t see the uniqueness)?” It was kind of like an adult version of “are we there yet?”

Suddenly as we came over a ridge, there in front of us was the most spectacular natural beauty I have ever laid my eyes on. Huge mountains of rock were carved away by years of sandstone blasting them into various abstract shapes, with huge patches of what looked like snow across the landscape.

It reminded me of Canadian winters in the Rocky Mountains. Drifts of snow scattered up and down the slopes of the mountains, only this time it wasn’t snow! If you had told me before I saw it, I wouldn’t have believed it. I knew it couldn’t be snow because the sun had pushed the temperature to over 40C and we had no AC in the jeep so it was like a blast furnace. I got out and walked down the sandy slope as the jeep continued to the bottom and the shade from one of the giant rocks.

We stopped for some hot tea before continuing our journey. As we drove on, the landscape was soon dotted with hundreds of white outcroppings in the sand looking alien and at the same time like they had been created by a sculptor.

My mind was spinning as I tried to figure out what each one looked like. Some already had names like the Mushroom and the Hen, or the Sphynx, but I came up with my own names for hundreds of others. My favorite was a mushroom-shaped rock that resembled an alien spaceship ready to blast off.

I was a little surprised to discover the pure white patches were not made up of soft sand but solid limestone rocks created by a prehistoric sea that covered the desert leaving behind these massive rocks and caves. I even found a few sea shells scattered around the rocks, in the middle of the desert, hundreds of kilometers from any ocean or sea.

We stopped to check out Crystal Mountain and if you picture a clear glass mountain (okay I’ve watched too many Disney animated movies) you would be disappointed. At first glance, it appears to be just another large beige-colored rock but as you get up close you see the massive rock is actually made up of quartz crystal, catching the reflection of the sun overhead.

As we moved through the White and Black Deserts, I learned that the Black Desert was created from the mountains of black basalt from ancient volcanoes worn away by millennia of erosion. The remnants have been scattered across the sand, leaving everything a dark grey color.

I’m sure the pharaohs must have seen this part of the desert and used it as a template for their pyramids. Huge lava cones are everywhere and if you didn’t know better you would swear they were actual pyramids.

We set up camp in the White Desert at sundown surrounded by all the pure white stone sculptures… a magical place.

Almost immediately a desert fox came around, moving in closer when he realized we wouldn’t be a threat. He was still nervous but became braver as we sat around the campfire and he gobbled up a mound of food the cook had set out for him.

Another fox came closer and that’s when the fight was on. But instead of the usual territorial battles in the animal world, this was more like… an argument. The pair lay next to each other on a large flat rock and proceeded to spar verbally, screeching out their arguments in a language only another fox would understand. Eventually, the argument ended and the one who had staked out his territory first was the winner and came back to eat some more food.

We were joined by four others from the same tour company who were out on their own excursion. We had a delicious Bedouin dinner of chicken and vegetable stew, rice, salad, and pita before we crowded around the campfire smoking Sheesha (flavored tobacco and/or hashish — smoked in a huge waterpipe). We talked, laughed, and smoked for hours and I didn’t want the night to end. When did I ever dream that one day I would be sitting around a campfire in the Egyptian Desert, smoking sheesha and listening to Bedouin folk music?

Eventually, we all crashed and I quickly learned that sleeping under the stars is not always as romantic as it sounds. First, there is sand everywhere so your skin becomes raw every time you roll over, second is all the flies that buzzed around us all night, as well as the ants (I woke up with bites all over my legs). One of the biggest problems though was the moon, as beautiful as the three-quarter moon was earlier in the evening, as I tried to sleep it was like a giant spotlight in my face.

Still, I managed a few hours of sleep before getting up early to climb on the big rocks where I sat gazing at the landscape while contemplating the meaning of life (one of the women we dined with was doing the same thing… on a different rock). This is really what it’s all about. No trip to Egypt would be complete without a visit to its magical deserts.

Thank you for reading. For more of my favorite travel destinations, you can check out my list of stories: