Egypt - Bahariya Oasis

Egypt
Desert
Author

Oliver Eaton

Published

February 26, 2023

Visiting an Oasis was always part of our schedule, we hadn’t decided which Oasis to visit prior to arriving in Egypt and planned on organising it while in the thick of things. There are five Oases in Egypt, each one offering a unique set of desert sights & experience.

After researching transportation for an evening, visiting an Oasis wasn’t as simple as we anticipated. There didn’t seem to be any (non-tour) buses that ventured from the Nile roads travelling inland towards the desert. We spoke to employees at our hostel about options getting to the desert and found out our hostel actually offered a tour to the Bahariya Oasis for $90USD per person. This price included transportation to Bahariya, a jeep journey through the Black & White Deserts, one night camping in the White Desert, food and water for the entire tour and transportation back to Cairo. This was a pretty good deal. It relaxed the requirement for us to organise further components beyond transportation and the price wasn’t ludicrous. So we snapped this up, and got ready for the mini-bus which left at 6.30am the following morning, packing a small day bag for the trip.


The mini-bus to Bahariya took around five hours, picking up tourists from other hostels & hotels along the way. Having other tourists on the tour was great because it gave us an opportunity to meet & talk to other people who came from all over the world. Joining us were Greeks, Chinese, Koreans, Turkish & Taiwanese.

After arriving at the small village of Bawiti, we ate lunch and were split into two groups of six and assigned to a jeep driver who would chauffeur us around the Black & White Deserts. Our driver’s name was Hazim.

Black Desert

The Black Desert is an old volcanic area. Due to the volcanic activity, I was half expecting the sands to be black, much like the iron sands on Taranaki beaches. But the sand is not black, instead, mounds of black stone (not sure type of stone) push up through the sand forming small volcanoes everywhere, it looks like a scene straight out of Hades. The formations were quite beautiful and interesting. Driving fast through the desert in a trusty jeep, with Arabic music blasting really accentuated the feeling of adventure!


White Desert

Literally across the highway from the Black Desert is the White Desert. The White Desert is whiter than the Black Desert is black. Here large limestone rocks are scattered everywhere, and we were weaving in between the rocks, driving down steep hills and drifting everywhere. I found views in the White Desert to be even more stunning and beautiful than the Black Desert. Hazim drove us to the top of a large sand dune and waxed up some sand-boards for us which we sat on and slid to the bottom of the dune. Trav & I asked about riding the boards standing up, but Hazim wasn’t keen on the idea because he has seen people injured in the past, and being injured in the desert with no medical assistance nearby is not a nice way to spend the evening. Trav actually attempted riding standing up, but the boards have no edge so carving down the slope wasn’t possible. Trav agreed that it was sketchy and a recipe for injury. After sand boarding we drove to a nice vantage point to watch the sunset.


White Desert - Overnight

Once the sun had set we drove to our camp where we would spend the night. The moon and stars early in the night were absolutely stunning, the Milky Way wasn’t visible yet. Hazim set up blankets for us to sit around around the fire and watch him prepare chicken, rice and pita bread for dinner. Dinner was delicious. By this time it was getting dark and the temperature dropped quickly. It was cold! Really cold! I was extremely glad to have packed a jacket. Not long after dinner Hazim set up a shisha pipe and we sat around the fire puffing shisha, just embracing the magical view of the Milky Way deep within the desert uninterrupted by light pollution and entombed within silence. This is a stark contrast to loud Cairo which we have been a part of for the last few days.

We opted to sleep under the stars instead of the tent, so we set up a thin mattress with sleeping bag and thick camel-fur blanket on the sand. The camel-fur blanket was an absolute necessity, it was insanely cold, and the blanket helped to establish a nice warm vacuum snug between the icy air and cool desert sand. With your head poking out the top a beanie would’ve achieved the comfort levels required to sleep, but I didn’t even bring one to Egypt, so Trav lent me a t-shirt which I wrapped around my head and went to sleep. I woke a few times in the night due to the cold and adjusted my camel-fur blanket to stave it off.


White Desert - Sunrise

We woke at 6:30am to watch the sunrise. An orange hue slowly saturated the westward sky, and all of a sudden it appeared providing much needed warmth to everyone & everything.

We then had breakfast and set off in the jeep back to Bawiti.


Tour End

At Bawiti village we met up with the other six on the tour, ate lunch and clambered into the mini-bus to head back to Cairo. By this time we had made new friends and got along with everyone on the tour really well. On the way home (to Cairo), we all exchanged WhatsApp numbers and prepared to swap and send photos with each other when we get back into WiFi range.

If I had the opportunity to do a jeep desert tour again I would organise more than one night. Two or three nights would be the prime amount of time to get a better understanding of the desert and the beautiful vistas it has to offer.