1 week down already! After a hectic couple of days in Cairo – pyramids, museums and visits to embassies to start our Sudanese visa application process, we left the hustle and bustle behind and boarded Athena to head for the Western Desert.
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| Guess where Jon, Glenn, Kaye and Claire are? |
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| How excited is Claire to be on the trip? |
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| Athena and the 2011 Cairo to Cape'rs |
What a wonderful surprise our first night was – a magical campsite with natural springs just outside, Bedouin tents to chill in, and a naturally-heated pool for starlit swims before bed. We started our daily sundowner tradition, followed by a braai (South African style barbeque). A comfortable campsite to ease us into the camping thing.
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| A desert oasis |
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| A touch of luxury |
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| Jon, Claire, Cherie & Zoe |
Continuing our journey, we explored the Oasis town of Bawiti, crossed the Black Desert and on into the White Desert. Fascinating lunar landscape, especially under near-fullmoon, and topped-off with G‘n’Ts courtesy of Sue and Bruce. We even had sightings of fennecs – desert foxes endemic to the arid regions of North Africa.
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| Just at the beginning of an epic expedition... |
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| The white desert |
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| A cheeky fennec |
Bushcamping 3 days in a row? No showers? No worries – we found natural hot springs perfect for a morning bath.
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| Hot springs - better than a shower any day! |
Al-Qasr is a charming settlement from the medieval/Ottoman times, and parts of the town have been restored to give a good impression of how it was in its day. We got lost in the cool narrow streets, saw a blacksmith at work, and found the cheapest bread on the trip so far!
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| Bruce behind bars... |
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| Ancient ruins |
A quick aside about the food: the tahini in Egypt is just great. Local meals of barbequed chicken, kofta, Egyptian rice, tahini, bread and salad. And if you have a sweet tooth, it’s a good place to be too – sweet black tea, hibiscus tea, pastries. And shisha water pipes throughout the day at every road-side cafe.
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| Living Egypt through its food |
Al-Bagawat was another interesting option for some – a necropolis with over 200 mud-brick tombs dating as far back as the 4
th Century AD. Unfortunately there is much graffiti (somehow it looks different in Arabic though) and some of the murals have been defaced by other religious fundamentalists in later times, but a few still clearly depict biblical scenes.
After trying to convey to our diligent police convoy, again, that we were self-sufficient and wanted to camp out in the desert, we found an awesome spot right on the edge of the dunes. Another wonderful night, our first fullmoon of the trip, perfect for a game of night frisbee, and a very happy and enthusiastic host and campsite owner ‘Honey’.
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| Kaye (another second-time Odyssey-er) in the desert |
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| Athena and some camels |
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| Hopefully Rogan wasn't asking for guidance as to which direction to go... |
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| The group looked at their transport options when finding this old tractor in the desert... but on balance decided to stick with Athena. |
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| We're heading to Cape Town! |
The Western desert was good to us and for us, but so were the showers and beds when we arrived at our hotel in Luxor! Not quite Egyptian cotton, but wifi, breakfast and laundry services – what else could we need?
Thanks Rogan and Alison for these excellent blogs - you've captured the adventure and excitement of the trip so far and posted some really good photos of people and places. The experience of being in that balloon high above that stunning, silent desert scenery must have been incredible. Keep up the hard work - planning, organising, buying in supplies, cooking, driving, truck servicing etc., plus the occasional glass or two of wine at sunset maybe!! Looking forward to the next blog. Many thanks, and good luck! Patrick Martin
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