Pyramid-6: Camping in the Desert

Camping in the Desert

Published Friday, December 01, 2006 by Pyramid-Six | E-mail this post

In a country that's 90 percent desert you don't have to travel far to see it. But to see something truly unique as deserts go, let me recommend the White Desert, smack in the middle of the country, a several-hour journey, mostly by four-wheel-drive vehicle, from Cairo.

The White Desert is a vast fantasy land of huge, snow white limestone formations protruding from the sands.

Ages ago, we're told, inland seas covered most of Egypt. When the water receded it carved the stone into every conceivable shape. Beautiful at any time, the White Desert turns magical at sunset.

The stones scintillate with a thousand hues in the fading light, and in the eerie solitude and utter silence, they seem to morph into living things.

It's an unearthly, alien place at any time, but expecially in the waning light.

And then the light drops completely away behind the horizon and the stars begin to blaze like dust of diamonds - more stars than one can conceive or describe.

When God told Abraham that his descendants would multiply like the stars of heaven, the man surely was more astounded than today's smog breathers can imagine.

We camped three days in the desert. Bedouin guides navigated the bewildering twists and turns through limestone canyons and across vast tracts of empty, windswept sand. At day's end they kept the fire burning to boil the tea and to chase away the night's chill. Parker and Grant fit right in!

The devout Muslim prays five times everyday no matter where he is. Here our Bedouin companions turn their backs to the setting sun and set their face toward Mecca in preparation for the evening Salat.

Our trip coincided with the kids' Thanksgiving break from school. Despite the exotic surroundings, the atmosphere or our Thanksgiving celebration was probably closer to the experience of the pilgrims and the Indians than to the modern white-tablecloth feasts. The Bedouin's idea of Thanksgiving dinner is delicious, but didn't include turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie!

Here (below) is the "kitchen" in the desert.

Lunch (below) was less elaborate: the ubiquitous Egyptian fuul (something like refried beans), white cheese, and flat bread.

Although nature's abstract sculptures in the White Desert are facinating, the most beautiful view of all is the rolling, empty sea of yellow sand that stretches for hundreds of miles across Western Egypt and into neighboring Libya. (That's Barrett standing up there on the outer frontier...).