Hello everyone from Aswan, Egypt's southern most city! But first, let me back up a few days...
Oct 24th: Today, the four of us headed out to the White Desert! Monica, after watching the desert section of Planet Earth, booked us a tour with a seemingly random company. Little did we know that this be one of the most epic days of our young lives.
After a 5 hour drive from Cairo, we arrived at a true desert Oasis (the surronding scenery had been nothing but flat, desolate, sand since we left Cairo) called Bahariya. We met our guides for the trip Tamer and Islam, two very funny Bedouin boys from this village oasis. We clambered into the back of Islam's jeep 4X4 (sorry moms, sans seat belt) and were whisked away to the Black Desert where we rolled/jumped/ran along some amazing sand dunes. Reminded me of the Brunuea Sand Dunes. From there, the desert landscape quickly changed to resemble Hawaii's Haleakala terrain; freckled with hundreds of cinder cones and sandstone. We scrambled up one of the dunes, Crystal Mountain (~50 meters) to take in the full panoramic picture.
Funny story: while we were climbing Crystal Mountain, Islam suddenly sped off. Turns out he spotted a baby chicken, and captured it, fearing it would die under the harsh African sun. The chick was placed in the glove compartment for safe keeping the duration of the trip.
After lunch at a teeny tiny oasis, we finally arrived at the White Desert! After racing around, spinning doughnuts, with Bedouin music blasting, our guides made camp. They set up two tapestries (I bought a similar one at a Cairo market) right in the middle of the desert, and built a little campfire which they roasted our chicken dinner on! Dinner was amazing (all the food is) and then, when we thought it couldn't get any better, our guides invited us to a party where all the other Bedouin guides (about 10 in all) were drinking tea, playing the drums, singing and dancing around a fire. Dancing around the fire with the guides has definitely been one of the highlights of the trip! After the party, we all laid out under the stars, which were the brightest I have ever seen them, and counted shooting stars and laughed until we fell asleep. :) Sounds cheesy, but it couldn't have been any better. Sooooo surreal. So many times we all looked at each other and asked, "is this really happening?" :)
To top the trip off at dawn, Marshall nudged me in order to see the cutest desert fox sniffing our campfire before trotting off into the vivid pink, yellow, and red hues of the sunrise reflecting off the White Desert's. AMAZING!
Will blog about Aswan soon (its been nothing short of amazing!). Tomorrow we are riding on a felucca up the nile towards Luxor.
