November 4th, 2019
We got up early to be ready for our 6am ride to take us to the desert. I always say you never know where the day is going to take you, and this especially felt true today. I didn’t know anything about the place we were going until the day before, and now here we are driving six hours deep into the Sahara Desert (the largest hot desert in the world). The drive went by fairly quick as we chatted with a new friend from New Zealand who was doing the tour as well. When we reached Bahariya Oasis we were introduced to the Bedouin guide who was going to take us around and set up camp for us tonight. We transferred to a 4×4 jeep type vehicle and set out with our new friend from New Zealand, a couple from Belgium, and a guy from Japan. Just the jeep ride itself was really fun as the guide drove fast and crazy just floating around on the soft powdery sand. He had me giggling in the back with the bumpy, but fun ride.
The first stop was the Black Desert. There was a hill that we climbed to get some pretty cool panoramic views. It was quite steep which made coming down a bit of a challenge, but we all managed.
Then we went to the White Desert. We parked at a place where we got some pretty epic views and the guide asked if he could see my scarf. He then made a Bedouin head covering which I thought was nice and festive. The White desert was truly spectacular and like always, I didn’t feel the photographs really captured it. We were laughing and talking amongst ourselves how it would be difficult to describe to others how beautiful it was, when you describe to them “there are white rocks in the middle of a lot of sand”. Doesn’t sound that amazing but it was. I think we were here at the best time for the desert since it is going into winter and not too hot. The temperature was in the low 80’s during the day and the mid 50’s at night. I’ve read that it can be unbearably hot in the summer.
After that stop we drove somewhere else where the guide took out some sand boards and had us give it a try. I had no idea this was part of the tour, so another unexpected surprise that was awesome. I was bummed when I missed sand boarding in Peru so I got super excited to be able to give it a try here. It was really fun but there was no chair lift to get back to the top. You have to trudge back up which is quite a workout in the deep powdery sand, especially when you are trying to go fast to get up quickly and give someone else your board. After the sandboarding we watched the sunset and then drove deeper into the White Desert to set up camp for the night.
We had one other jeep join us at the spot we camped. It was a couple from Siberia and their guide. We had a very diverse group from all over the world at camp that night. The Bedouin guides quickly got to work and set up the whole camp for us and built a fire. Then they cooked us a great BBQ dinner.
We all sat around talking. The girl from Siberia was very nice answering all my questions about where she lives etc. I had never met anyone from Siberia before. Needless to say, Siberia is now on my travel wish list.
The Bedouins make a really good “Bedouin tea” that they refer to as whiskey (since they don’t drink alcohol). It is quite strong for tea but very good. We sipped the tea around the fire and had dessert of roasted sweet potatoes. Once it got late they set out our sleeping bags and mats and we went to bed under the stars. Before bed we saw a couple desert foxes which were really cool. They are small and not that shy because they are used to campers leaving food for them.
I had never spent time in the desert before. I thought it was the most amazing thing, especially how quiet it was. I realized that generally when you are out in nature, you hear sounds of crickets or frogs or wind. Here, there was absolutely nothing. We crawled in our sleeping bags and admired the incredible stars that were super bright. Without any light pollution it was really amazing. The only thing stopping this from being perfect was the one thing that stops many places from being a perfect paradise. Mosquitoes… How can there even be mosquitos out there with literally nothing else? Plus, I thought they liked water? Crazy insects that I have really grown to hate. It was still magical though and all night I kept waking up to look at the stars some more. It was beautiful!