Home Stretch Part II: Lauren and Marlene’s Sandy Adventure

As luck would have it, a couple Thursdays ago I was refused entry onto the bus because I was partaking of an ice cream sundae. So while I was finishing it up, my long lost friend Jacob, from the Luxor-Aswan days, showed up out of nowhere. After a bit of conversation I learned that he and a few others were heading to the Black and White desert over the weekend for a camping trip. Whether out of politeness or genuine friendly interest, he invited me along. Just so I’d have something to blog about of course, I readily assented. While the trip wasn’t exactly as planned as I would have liked (no bus tickets, no desert guide, no nothing) we all had smiles on our faces and extra pairs of underwear. We could have conquered anything. Of course things started going wrong almost immediately. To begin with, our plans to show up at the bus station and buy our tickets in the morning were hastily scrapped when we found out all the tickets had been sold. We rushed to another station about 15 minutes away to see if their portion of the tickets were sold as well, but by the time we arrived the bus had left. Lucky for us, this bus station number two is also a general rallying point for the microbuses of Cairo and we tried our luck at securing a mini bus to Bahariyya oasis, the departure point for trips into the desert.

Waiting to get a mini-bus

Thanks to the excellent Arabic skills of a certain Mido (being Egyptian helps with that..) we/he eventually worked through a number of unforgiving drivers till about two hours later we nearly secured passage on a private minibus for Le450. Unfortunately at around the same time Jacob had utilized his fallback and called a tour operator who arrived on the scene and got us a Le500 minibus and a arranged for two guides with 4x4’s to meet us when we arrived in Bahariyya. I can’t really complain. So a few hours, some snacks and an unsuccessful nap later we roll into the ‘oasis’ and are met by a couple of really beat up Jeeps which hastily whisked us away into the black and white deserts. 

Getting Whisked

As handy as I like to think I am with the English language I think this short clip will give you the most accurate idea of what our desert romp was really like. These guys are wayy too handy with their 4x4's.

Brief intro to the whole black and white desert thing. Both desert areas are part of Egypt's Western desert. The Black desert is so called because of the layers of black debris left by previous volcanic activity. You know you're in the Black desert because the entire place appears to be covered with crumbled oreos. The white desert is the pristine opposite of the black. The sand is so ridiculously fine and soft and large white cusps of chalk rise up out of the ground all over the place. Some of the more giant ones have been shaped by wind and sand over the years creating some pretty sick rock formations- the major appeal of the place.

I think this one was called the chicken? 

After watching the sunset from the top of the hill featured in the above video we scurried off to a nice flat space to make camp...

 

Sunset in the desert. Jealous?

In no time at all our bedouin guides had erected what at least amounts to a 4 star establishment using only their cars, some tapestries and a few blankets. While this was going on I wasted no time in plopping myself down on the sand and basically just staring at the sky. I was feeling a little Lion King-esque, but no seriously guys I have never seen this many stars in my entire life. There a like 12 dippers of varying sizes out there. I even saw the milky way, for the first time ever. Oh, and Orion’s bow? Yeah, I saw it, no big deal (=REALLY FRICKIN HUGE DEAL) On the one hand I wish I could have captured this on film, on the other hand, you punks are just gonna have to see it for yourselves one day.

Around this time the desert, as it is wont to do, started to turn deathly cold. We did our best to huddle around the campfire and entertain eachother while our Bedouins cooked some delicious foods. I remember sharing a lot of entertaining stories, I just don’t remember what they were.

Campire and accommodations in background

Badi shwaya Our delicious meal was ready and we eagerly sat down to consume our chicken, rice, and tomato-potato soupy delicious stuff. Maybe we were just starving... but that was one of the best meals ever. I think there were potato chips involved too. There usually are.

After the meal we migrated back toward the fire where the guides made some tea to pass around that was so sweet it actually made my teeth hurt. I had three cups. Our time around the fire was most memorably marked by song time, complete with tabla and balady tunes. Once our Bedouins got tired of us not knowing any songs we all slowly began to pitch in our own cultural musical contributions. Which is how I ended up in a desert in the middle of Egypt singing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with a couple Christians, four Muslims, a Hindu, and a Jew. Add Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire and I’ll be Home for Christmas and it was certainly an experience I won’t be forgetting soon. Eventually it was time to head bed-wards and I walked across the icy sand, cringing, to finish putting on every single item of clothing I’d brought with me, and some of Mido’s too. All in all I had on about 5 layers up top, I think 4 on bottom, a scarf, and a pair of socks (thanks, big guy!) Of course as was bound to happen eventually, nature called, and while I try to refrain from sharing my defecation stories with you, I just want everyone to know that not only did I walk about 10 minutes to get to a spot that felt private enough to dig a hole and ‘go’ in, but that I’ve had to pee in a lot, and I mean A LOT of strange places since my arrival in Egypt, and this was by far the most magical of them all. If I hadn’t had tp with me though it would have sucked. Because not even billions of divinely beautiful stars can make up for the need to air dry in below freezing weather.  TMI mumkin? Sorry.

Back at the campsite, we were each issued one camel hair blanket and one fluffy sleeping bag. While some of us could have fit ourselves in them twice (Nitasha), and others just plain didn’t fit at all (Mido), most of us managed to cover most ourselves with some ounce of cloth and in the freezing cold, under the stars, we attempted to sleep. Attempted. I woke up what felt like every 30 minutes wishing for either the morning or a quick death. Mostly the quick death.  When I was not being suicidal however I’m told I was busy kicking off all my blankets, thankfully a special someone was there to throw my blankets back on. Thanks you. Eventually I opened my eyes for the millionth time and was a little jolted because everything was red. Ahh said I, and removed the red blanket from over my face. Sun! At last! I was the second one up guys, can you believe it? Mostly because I was too cold to stay supine any longer, I spent a few minutes trying, unsuccessfully, to regain feeling in my extremities then just gave up and went off to find Jacob, the first one up. He was, predictably, off taking pictures, so I joined him and we opted for a rather long Bollywood style photo shoot, not returning from our adventures till breakfast had been lain on the table. Whether from the cold or some unsatisfactorily prepared chicken the night before my stomach was in major revolt mode and I just sat by waiting to depart (I took a piece of bread though, just in case. Oh and some cheese, because its not cool to waste that stuff).  We wended our way back from where we came from with a few variations and quite a few more stops which took us to some terribly photographable places...

...including one hike up a semi treacherous hill-mountain thing. It was awesome. There were those little piles of stones from all the people who’d made it to the top.

Made it!

            Eventually we made it back to the town proper, but not without getting stuck in the sand first...

... And right outside what I think was a guard tower that we weren't supposed to be driving around...

We paid the drivers, bought some snacks, and headed back to Cairo. The next morning marked the beginning of the end of my semester at AUC and was fun filled with rehearsals and quizzes. I’ll save the remaining events for my last post, which will come before I actually depart Cairo Inshallah.