In order to survive a smog sickened group packed a small bag and got into a mini-van to a jeep where we set off on our adventures in the White Desert. Our journey began at 6:30 am on Friday, an unheard of waking hour here in Cairo.
I actually have no idea which direction we traveled from Cairo because Egyptians do not speak in cardinal directions. In fact what most would call Southern Egypt is known around here as Upper Egypt because of the way the Nile flows, super confusing. 
All eight of us crammed into the bounciest ride of my life. Travelers included fellow Kenana teachers Katie, Paul and Chrissie and my Alexandria cohorts Mossad (I spelled his name wrong before, sorry!), Christina and Sherif. We were also joined by Mossad's friend visiting from Syria, Darcy. What a killer group. I sat in the back the whole time, near the door, probably not the smartest thing because it was ready to pop open at any moments. I feel pretty lucky that I have found seven other people that I can spend this much time with in a car and still like when we get out. That is a hard thing to find, you know?
While we were heading to the White Desert we first had to travel through the Black Desert. Fields, if you can call them that, or rather miles of beige sand covered with shards of black rock. Crazy.
Obligatory tourist picture number one.
Sherif attempting to climb to the top. This trip is first time I have ever wanted to be a a geologist because there were some crazy rocks. 
After the Black Desert we stopped in a small oasis to eat lunch. The desert area is still mainly undeveloped besides bedouin farmers. Despite the apparent oxymoron, bedouins are supposed to roam, many have settled down and serve as guides to the desert and farmers. From my limited knowledge they settle around small oasis and use them to irrigate crops and run irrigation troughs through tourist lunch spots. How nice.
Green life.
Magical crystals that will give me power to conquer any obstacles I run into while in Cairo. I found them/they found me while gazing upon the Crystal Mountain, our third safari stop. The sand glittered with crystal/quartz type rocks (here again I must wish I was a geologist).
Massive quartz rock.
Our trip was about half on paved roads and about half off-road. We drove into the White Desert just before sunset and stopped on top of this hill to look out into the beginnings of the white chalky features. One of the my favorite parts of the trip was how we traveled from black sands to white sands and crossed some gray/beige sand in the middle. I really enjoyed watching the sand change color from one absolute to another.
Chalky hills.
Obviously we had to get slightly savage, in order to really commune with mother nature.
Obligatory tourist picture number two.
Most of the rock formations looked a little like mushrooms, skinny on the bottom and big on the top. They also reminded me of coral reefs underwater, which makes sense because this was an ocean eons ago. There were little shells and things in the white rocks, pretty fun to see a really old ocean. This is where we camped out for the night. Our guide set up a small seating area, aka covered the ground with matts and rugs. Then he set about cooking us amazing grilled chicken, rice and vegies. We ate like kings and then took a short walk to another nearby caravan. They were larger and had guides who played the towuulah (totally spelled wrong) drum and sang of bunch of songs. I happy to report I passed out super early after marshmallows by the fire because I had been up late the night before and woke up way to early. We bundled up in sleeping bags and enjoyed the cold desert night. Before I passed out I did manage to see a tiny desert fox sneak around our camp and plenty of stars. I woke up the next morning to perfect sunny skies and we got back in the jeep for the drive to mini-van/hotel where we showered and drove back to Cairo. All in all a pretty stellar weekend get-away.
The End
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