Bahariyya Oasis

This weekend I went out to Bahariyya oasis, which is one of several oases lying near the border between the Black and White Deserts. The Black Desert gets its name from the ubiquitous layer of small black rocks that sit on top of the sand, making the desert as a whole appear dark brown. The White Desert gets its name both from the lack of these small black rocks, which allows the natural very light color of the sand to show through, and from the presence of large limestone and alabaster formations, both of which are very white.

Maps will tell you that there are five oases in Egypt. This is a LIE. We passed through about 15 on the way from Cairo to Bahariyya. At each one, we would all say to one another "Surely this is Bahariyya - there are only five oases in Egypt and Bahariyya is the closest to Cairo." Then we would drive out the other side of that oasis and reenter the desert. This 'five oasis' concept quickly grew outmoded. At any rate, we eventually reached Bahariyya and embarked in a pair of Land Rovers (driven by a pair of very friendly Bedouin) into the desert.



We began in the Black Desert, seen above. We were all pretty tired of sitting after the bus ride, so we ended up running (at first) and later walking up one of the multitude of mountains that springs from the desert floor without warning. Those of you who have been to visit me at Philmont will notice that the terrain looks pretty similar, just without any trees. I was struck by this similarity throughout the trip to Bahariyya, but particularly while hiking up this hill. It brought back a lot of memories, and I began to think that it wasn't really all that different from the mountains in New Mexico.



Then I got to the top, and there was an ABSOLUTELY GINOURMOUS NEON GREEN SPIDER sitting out on a rock. Seriously - massive and bright green. Picture a tarantula, then make it twice as big, then give it massive fangs, then make it neon green. Also make it extremely fast and capable of jumping. This was nothing like New Mexico. It was, however, pretty awesome. I never saw a scorpion while in the desert, unfortunately, but that spider pretty much made up for it. This was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of spider viewing (this assertion is supported by the fact that I haven't been able to find any pictures of it. You're going to have to trust me on this one). This is the kind of spider that gives you superpowers when it bites you and you go on to get your own comic book series and blockbuster movies.

Anyway.

After coming back down the mountain we drove a little further into the Black Desert (but approaching the White Desert) and stopped at a Bedouin village camp for lunch.



The roof was held up by a thicket of palm trees that had been delimbed, created several very sturdy vertical posts to build around. Water from an underwater aquifer was being pumped to the surface and ran through on a trough. The noise from the generator for the pump kind of spoiled the idyllic desert atmosphere, but having a very handy source of running water to put one's feet in was fantastic. Of course, this was before we saw them washing dishes and food downstream of all of our feet.

After this we went to see the pillars of limestone and alabaster that marked the boundary between the Black Desert and the White Desert. This was not quite as dramatic as I had been expecting.



I intended to see good white lands and bad black lands, but the scene is grey.



Further into the White Desert we entered into an expanse of limestone pillars shaped into mushrooms by the wind. These pretty much defy description, and I'm not going to try. This is one of the better pictures I got of them. More are available if you want them. Look! Here's one now!



The sun was setting at this point, so we drove deeper into the miles of limestone mushrooms and made camp. Rain was a definite nonissue, so making camp consisted of parking the Land Rovers at a right angle, setting up a curtain against them (presumably to protect us from blowing sand) and putting out cushions everywhere to sit and sleep on. Desert foxes appeared about three minutes after we sat down to see if we had food (which we did. They got some of it) We ate, looked at stars for a while, ran around in the desert a lot (one of the advantages of the White Desert is that the sand is completely clean - there are no rocks of any size mixed in, and you can walk barefoot without any problem), and eventually went to sleep.



The next morning I woke up. The curtain that protected us from blowing sand unfortunately was facing the wrong direction to protect us from the sun, so actually I woke up pretty early. So did this other guy (named Jon), so I amused myself taking various pictures of him and rock formations while the sun finished coming up. People give pictures that lived-in feeling.



And look! There's me! I got a haircut.