Western Desert Egypt, land of camels, oases and the occasional donkey...

Sunset, Western Desert, Egypt

Woke up to the alarm buzzing for the first morning for quite a while, I had slept straight through the call to prayer, although with the campground surrounded my mosques I am still unsure how I managed this!. We headed out of camp on foot bound for Karnak Temple for the 6.30am opening time. As we walked we saw the moon getting ready to set on the opposite bank of the Nile, it was the biggest and yellowiest moon I have seen. Karnak Temple is larger than the other temples we have seen, but does not contain the impressive detail as most of the others. We spent a couple of hours wandering around and taking photos of the 134 huge towering columns and stone sheep carvings then headed back to camp for a breakfast of French toast, nutella and banana and our last shower before Giza, six days away.

Karnak Temple, Luxor

After a quick food shop we headed out into the Western Desert. We were stopped at a lot of police checkpoints on the way out of Luxor, after a few nights of less than desired sleep, I curled up in a ball on the side seat and was out cold under my Maasai blanket quickly, I only woke as I started to get cold...errr, yes I meant to type that, cold. With the canvas sides up and the truck moving at 80km/h things can get pretty chilly in the back sometimes. Shortly after we stopped for lunch on the side of the road, I climbed tot he top of the nearby hill and was surprised at the strange collection of rocks, it was like someone had tipped their rock collection out on the ground. We continued down on of the most scenic roads I have ever experienced, towering limestone (or sandstone) escarpments, cliffs and canyons for about 50km. At the end of the canyon the road flattened out amazingly quickly.

Road weaves through the desert terrain

 Little did anyone in the back know at the time, but we were heading in the wrong direction, north, instead of south west, we were actually on one of the main roads to Cairo and wondering why it was so busy! At one of the intersections we had taken the wrong turn, quite understandable as there are very few signs and most of the signs are in Arabic. After a few more police checkpoints we pulled up on the side of the road for a bush camp, not surprisingly we quickly had a visit from a local, “no English?”, “no Arabic?”, “no English?” we assumed that he wanted either money or didn’t want us to camp there and money... ha ha, no grass, no toilets, no showers, no trees, no water, no money! As Mark had reversed the truck back to pull off the road the mud guard got caught on the tyre and ripped off, the sand was soft so we camped quite close to the road, the traffic went all night! A full moon rose (the real moon variety) and very soon the cameras were out getting photographs, myself cursing the bastard who stole my tripod, yet again! The temperature in the desert dropped away incredibly quickly and very soon we were viewing our travelling companions wearing clothes not yet sighted, I was very excited to pull my striped beanie out of my locker to keep my ears warm. Spencer and I were the only ones to not put the rain cover on the tent; we woke up with damp sleeping bags from dew. With the smell of Spencers ass I wanted as much ventilation as possible!

Sunrise, Western Desert

A 6am start the following morning, it turns out that there are places in Egypt where you can avoid the call to prayer, you just need to get out into the desert! We left camp at 7am heading in the right direction. Ronald had been tracking our direction the day before and had announced that our campsite was the same distance away from the oasis we were heading to as out campsite in Luxor had been!, all part of the adventure and another story for blog readers I say. After driving a few hours we somehow accumulated a police escort, there were four guys with machine guns following behind us in a police vehicle, occasionally using their siren to remind us that they were there. We stopped on the outskirts of a town called El Kharga. Not quite sure what the problem was, Mark went into the tourist information office to sort it out, our police escort then followed us into the centre of town, we did a 540 degree turn through a roundabout, I assume to piss the escort off. Upon parking the truck we realised that our police friends are guarding it for us, a man standing right at the back of the truck with an AK-47. I am getting much more used to seeing guns the further that I travel through Africa, but seeing a machine gun so close to me still has an effect on me. After witnessing the power of an AK-47 in Cambodia when Spencer fired 50 rounds in about 10 seconds it is scary to think that so many young police officers, security guards hold them so complacently on the streets. Spencer and I went for a stroll to find a toilet, he claimed that he was desperate, but kept turning down every available toileting spot, to finally walk a huge lap and end up in the same street. After he returned from his hiding spot in the trees, I ducked around the corner for a wee, it’s all good until I realise that there is a camera aimed at me, then realise it’s my own camera with Spencer holding it! I manage to zip my pants up just as a car drove past, the man behind the wheel looked left, looked right, then swung his head so quick as to give himself a neck injury!, now that’s the meaning of rubbernecking! I have never seen someone move their block so quickly! From there we got two bags of chips and two cornetto ice creams for 5 pound (less than one Aussie dollar), we found a place to sit in the shade to devour our ice cream and were annoyed when we realised that the man who had tried to sell us something (we think) earlier was loitering around us. After looking up to see him staring at me on three separate occasions I flung my arms up in the air in a “what the f&*k” type of expression, not a good idea, then he was over trying to talk to us with a big smile on his face. He didn’t speak any English so had no idea what I was talking about when I told him to stop staring at me and to go away (not in those exact words), we walk back down the street only for him to follow. Spencer had the next go at him, again lost in translation. We were confused as he had nothing apparent to sell and hadn’t asked for money, we had no idea of his purpose. I decided he was a bit loco, but Spencer claimed that he was too well dressed, I decided he was a loco with a very caring mother (he was about 30). On our way back to the truck we stopped at a sweet stall where Mark and Kyle were buying something, we got a huge candy/toffee like Frisbee thing, walking away from the stall we see the man who had been following us again! Spencer waved him on his way and we continue on our merry way back tot he truck which is now guarded by about 10 men with guns. We figure a game of scrabble is in order and set up the board on the footpath, much to the amusement of passing traffic. After pomegranate, chocolate and cheese for lunch Jen, Jules and I were leading thanks to some great words like ferment and quin the local police arrive in even greater numbers and we are ushered to the police station, with about 20 tiles left to play we were sitting out the front of the police station whilst Mark was inside registering our details, the scrabble board had been carefully picked up and the game continued on the top of the esky in the back of the truck. The police escort followed us out of town, still sounding the occasional siren. We stopped on the outskirts of town so some people could have a swim in an irrigation channel with suspect floaters which looked remarkably like poo on the top. I declined a swim, immersing myself in poo water surrounded by armed Arab men and men armed with mobile phones with cameras didn’t really seem inviting! Spencer went in and smelt suspiciously like poo afterwards! Whilst sitting in the truck I realise that the man who was following us was sitting just outside the truck, with the police. Turns out he is an undercover tourist police, following us around to make sure we were safe and sound, and he was armed. Now I can say that I have sworn at an armed Arabic man in Africa and lived to blog the tale. My suggestion to the tourist police is to get ID cards made up to show the tourists that they are protecting exactly who they are. The only time I have felt uncomfortable in Egypt was because of the people who are there to protect me! We drove for a couple of hours still being followed by five armed police officers behind us, we made a bush camp behind a mobile phone tower and our police friends parked up behind us. They then left to head back into town for food and gear to sleep the night. After a ‘what would you do if you heard gunshots coming towards the truck and you were in the desert?’ type conversation over dinner (most people put down to run for the hills, despite the raging full moon that was leaving shadows across the land). I took some night shots of the truck and phone tower.

Camp by the mobile phone tower, you can see our police escort vehicle behind the truck

                                     
We woke up in the middle of the night to hear a car slow down on the highway and then pull off the road, I looked out of the tent to see lights pulling up two meters behind the truck. The occupants of the car got out and were standing around the truck holding a very loud conversation in Arabic. By this stage I am starting to plan what I am going to take for my evacuation into the desert if the situation declines. Eventually the second car leaves and the following day we discover that the original police escort abandoned us sometime during the night, ‘what the?...’ The next morning we stopped at a town called Mut, which had an old abandoned section of town.

Old Town, Mut

We went for a stroll through the ramshackle assortment of mud brick and straw houses that had been abandoned. We climbed to the top of one of the houses with a local man in tow who insisted that we come to his house for tea, with no time for tea before the truck left we declined the offer, he instead walked us back through the maze of alleyways to the truck. I used the toilet near the truck, only to be surprised by a local boy bathing in a green wheelie bin in the female toilets! Hilarious! Burbs was on cook group by himself that night, to speed the sightseeing process up so he had time for shopping, we had seen him sprinting through the old town with his camera out in front taking photos as he sped through. We continued on our way, stopping at Mut Well 3 for a swim in a hot spring at a hotel. The water was very brown and all our togs were filthy afterwards, but the water was warm and the closest thing any of us will get to a shower for six days. A man from the hotel was trying to sell us beers for 25 pound, they are usually about 8! You can buy 25 falafel burgers for 25 pound! After drying off we clambered back into the truck and continued down the road, passing some magnificent but barren mountains with not a scrap of foliage on them. We also passed some irrigated areas which were oddly green in the dry desert. We stopped at El Mozawaka tombs which is a small hill with tombs dug into it. You could look in and see bodies in the tombs, some had several in each and others were so close to the entrance that you could reach in and touch them if so inclined.

Spencer tries to pose as a photographer....he didn't fool anybody!

Untamed Outback...appropriate!

The following morning we stopped in a town called Farafar to buy lunch and for food group shopping. We continued onto some calcium carbonate formations in the desert, some photos and a game of Frisbee, we followed the backtrack for a while longer, seeing more stone formations and lots of alabaster laying on the side of the road.

Calcium carbonate formations, Western Desert

Burbs with his best Arab pose on!

Spencer and myself, Western Desert

Lunch time

The sand on the road was pretty soft in spots and eventually we came across a permanent tented camp with a swimming pool (there was not a drop of water or tree anywhere for miles). The man at the camp told us we would not be able to continue on the road in the truck, so we turned and made our way back tot he highway. We stopped in an area which was a petrified forest, we found many strange rocks and some petrified wood, some of which looks like petrified mangrove roots. With the calcium carbonate in the soil it was almost impossible to take your sunglasses off; to do so would be inviting snow blindness. That night we made camp in the White Desert Natural Preserve, which is full of white domes, which remind me of a smaller, white version of the bungle bungles in Western Australia, as we had driven past a police patrol and were not sure if camping was allowed we waited until after dark to put our tents up or fully unload the truck. A few of us went for a walk whilst waiting for the sun to set, we headed east and were surprised to find lots of other people camping nearby, complete with camels!   

Corrogated road, White Desert Natural Preserve

Fisheye view of the White Desert



Myself, White Desert Natural Preserve



Other campers, White Desert

White Desert Natural Preserve

The Saffa brothers, White Desert

While packing up the following morning I almost fell over in the dish water that had been discarded, it had turned the ground more slippery than Teflon! Again I blamed my crocs and relived my ‘almost toilet disaster’ where my right foot slipped out from beneath me and the only thing that saved me from remaining, to this day, in splits position on the toilet floor was the fact that my pants were around my knees and therefore saved my legs from adopting the full splits position! We made a stop for lunch and cook group, chocolate pudding with last nights leftovers, awesome! I had been looking forward to Son’s chocolate pudding since Ethiopia! We stopped at a cultural museum which turned out to be a very weird place, no entry price signs, no person there a head of clay statues that people wanted to buy but the man kept saying they were not for sale, there were lots of rooms set up in a traditional manner and all made from clay. We were not sure if the man was trying to charge us money as we left, he seemed unable to produce a price for our five minute wander through the gallery. When we were climbing onto the truck he was hurriedly shouting Arabic into his phone, we assume trying to get the owner o the place there to sort things out, we were long gone....We continued down the road, upsetting more locals; after stopping and walking over to some old roman ruins, three opportunists followed us over trying to extract money from us by saying that the ruins were on property owned by them...yeah right! And besides, you would have more luck in squeezing blood out of a stone than money out of a group of people who have not worked for at least six months!  They were persistent, following us right over to the truck and still asking for money as we were driving off! Sitting in the truck with people asking for money is common practice over here anyway! (I will point out that there was no ticket booth, fences, signs or anything at this site, the information that we had also said it was free).

Old Roman Ruins

That night we set up camp near another mobile phone tower, again, right on cue, a local man arrived to check out proceedings, but strangely, he didn’t want money and was happy for us to camp there! After dinner, before the long awaited chocolate pudding Kyle, Kenji, Gab and I wandered over to the train line. Ronald had used his blackberry earlier to look up the train timetable, but found that there were only freight trains on no set timetable that day (Ronald has become the truck librarian, finding out cricket scores, locations, train timetables and scrabble dictionary contents!) Armed with Canon cameras and me with a camp stool as a tripod (again cursing the bastard who has my tripod, hope they have poked out an eye with it) We take a couple of shots down the lines, talk some camera talk, all interesting stuff like f-stops, aperture, ISO’s etc etc, then we see a light up the track and think that ‘just maybe’ its a train, I look and announce it’s just a truck on the road, nope the ‘chuf, chuf, chuf, chuf’ sound does it, it’s a train, “cripes, I have a fish eye lens on and I’m in the desert, at night with a train coming!”, after contemplating allowing huge amounts of sand onto my sensor by changing lenses, I decide that without a proper tripod my photos are probably going to be pretty ordinary anyhow, so I leave the fisheye on. (a fisheye lens is a very wide angle view, meaning that it can capture a photo of almost 180 degree view, making everything look much smaller than it is in real life, still don’t understand...imaging the complete opposite of a telephoto zoom lens) A quick 30 second discussion about settings and who is going to do what and we are set up, staggered along the tracks about 2m from the expected train. I have always believed that trains create a sucking effect as they pass and tell everyone to secure their lens caps, as the train approaches we hear a man on the train yelling something to us, then we get blasted with sand...remember we are in the Western Desert of Egypt. I still wonder what the crew on the train must have thought when they saw us there, possibly assumed we were bandits! We had a variety of shots, all at different settings, but none compared to seeing the train barrelling through the desert in the middle of the night unexpectedly! After all 80 odd carriages pass it’s then time to compare our shots and then head back to the truck to clean off our beloved Canon cameras...gee I keep good company, only thing that would have made it better would have been Dranspaddock there with her Canon camera (and if I had a proper tripod!).

Kenji takes a long exposure photo of a passing freight train, Western Desert

What better place to lay on train tracks for a photo (this was after the train had passed!)

Downloading photos with the electricity from the phone tower, Western Desert....true Untamed Outback Images style!

After  the sand has been eliminated from our pride and joys it’s time for chocolate pudding, complete with fresh strawberries and cream, awesome! Pudding was even better than last time and completed a great day in style! After dinner it was announced that when we arrive in Giza we will be having a full truck clean, everything, absolutely everything, out of the truck and clean. Following that announcement was another, that the following day would also be ‘no swear day’ to raise money for movember, Jen’s response “what? On truck cleaning day?” ‘No swear day?’ hmmm, now that’s a problem for me at the moment, it’s been far too long since I spent a day in a work place or with my mother (Hi Mum, love you!) that my swearing is out of control. I get out of the tent and my first word is a swear word!, at five pounds a word and no income, I announce a vow of silence for the day! (Yeah, those of you who know me, know that I have even less chance of achieving that as I do of not swearing or summiting Mt Everest without oxygen wearing a bikini). Mark paid a 200 pound “all you can swear pass” and was throwing words about, the rest of us couldn’t afford 200 pounds for the luxury of unlimited profanities so had to keep them in check. I did notice a wider use of the English language that day! We drove through fog into Giza, the fog cleared to show smog! We stopped at a service station to get the chassis of the truck pressure sprayed then headed into our campsite, seeing a decapitated horse floating in the drain. 20 million people (only two million less than the whole of Australia) live in Cairo and traffic is crazy!, every road appears to be a one way street so we ended up doing a few laps to get to the campsite. On the way we got our first glance at the pyramids, ‘crickey, they are big!’ After aspiring to see the pyramids since I was about 12, I was prepared to be disappointed, but I was able to announce that I was impressed already! We had a bit of time for lunch before truck cleaning started...errr, or should I say the bitch and whinge fest! From where I was scrubbing and cleaning everyone looked to be getting right in and doing a good job, but there are some people who will find fault at anything that some people do...emphasis on the ‘some’. I put my head down and scrubbed and seemed to avoid any shrapnel. It was a bloody big job, when it was said that ‘everything’ came out oft he truck, it was no kidding. Even the seats were removed and scrubbed, all the food items were washed, sugar, tea and spice containers emptied and washed then refilled, cutlery, plates etc, pots were scrubbed back to silver. It is good to use clean gear again, I am glad that there are no dusty roads between Cairo and Istanbul! Afterwards most people indulged in a beer, ‘no swear day’ appeared to be over so we all indulged in a tad of swearing and I had a soft drink! Yay! After the drinks it was time for a shower, the first in six days, heaven!

Truck cleaning day

The following morning we headed to the pyramids, upon arrival the truck was thoroughly searched and we had to walk in through security and meet the truck on the inside. The saffa brothers decided to get on their Arab get-up and before we could say ‘Arabs’ the whole truck were reinvented as Arabs, I have to say that it just completed my pyramid experience to see all of us dressed up! We wandered around the great pyramid (Cheops) which is the largest at 146m, followed by the pyramid of Khafre (Chephren) which is the one you see with part of the limestone veneer still intact. It is smaller than Chephren, but is sits on higher ground so looks taller.  The inside of a pyramid is hot and stuffy and incredibly narrow. After entering the passage way drops away sharply and is enough to invite claustrophobia. There were no paintings like inside the tombs and all the artefacts have since been moved to the Cairo museum or to other museums around the world. It’s impressiveness is in the mass of small tunnels designed to trick any tomb robbers and the awareness of millions of tonnes of bricks over your head! We got back on the truck and drove up to the viewing point, now I thought that the truck attracted a lot of attention before... but  that’s nothing compared to the attention an overland truck full of Arab impersonators at the Great Pyramids of Giza attracts! At the viewing point we were aware of some people taking photos of us instead of the pyramids! We then made our way down to the sphinx; only half of it is open for viewing so it was a push and shove fest to bustle your way into a position to get a photo. Tour guides really need to sort their s&*t out and not decide to talk to a group of 50 people in a doorway, blocking the other 100 people a minute wanting to get through that doorway!. The Sphinx was not as impressive as I had imagined it to be, maybe I should have viewed it before the pyramids, at 20 odd meters high, it’s a short ass compared to a 146m pyramid! The sphinx really needs his nose back, Napoleons army shot it off and now its in the British museum...send it back! Selleys should sponsor the glue to stick the honker back on!

AK (Adam Kennedy) and Spencer at Giza

Myself and Spencer, Arab style

Spencer and myself infront of the second pyramid

Getting back on the truck

Hendrick, Spencer, Myself, AK, Burbs, Son, Kenji and Ronald at the pyramids lookout

Ronald, Burbs and Spencer, Giza

 Spencer was on cook group that night; he whipped up veggie burgers that most of the carnivores preferred over the beef variety. The following morning we had an early start for the short drive into Cairo, mainly to avoid the traffic and also to ensure there was a parking spot (or three consecutive ones) in the car park where the truck will be parked up for the four days we will be in Cairo. Even early in the morning the traffic was ridiculous, the truck did some pruning of the trees down a couple of side streets. Our hotel is good, on the ninth floor above KFC, opposite the train station and over the road from the museum. Spencer and I headed off to get some supplies, after checking the museum opening times and turning down many, many taxis we cross the Nile on foot, about the 30^th time we have crossed the Nile in the past three months. We took the train down to the main train station to book tickets to Alexandria in a few days time, what an experience!, the station is undergoing renovations and the ticket counted has been moved, we had to find the tourist police to ask where it was as most of the signs were in Arabic, we find the ticket office (we had previously walked into it but not realised we were in the right place) We line up at one counter and wait, then are surprised and pleased to find that the man behind the glass speaks English, he directs us to the next counter, we wait at the next counter until he man who pushed in front of us is served and then are redirected back tot he original counted, again we wait till the rude bastard who has pushed in (honestly there is nothing bar physical violence, that you can do against a huge Egyptian man wearing a suit who pushes in front of you) So we are then redirected back to the other counter, ‘what the?’ No, we are directed two counters up! With the interpretive help of a local man we buy our tickets, all written in Arabic! It shall be interesting trying to find the right platform! We get the train back to our stop but decide to ride the trains for a bit, what the hell, our ticket cost all of 20 Aussie cents, lets get full value out of it! Depending where the train was on the line would depend on the amount of people on it. Riding Egyptian trains when they are empty is great, when they are full is not so great, 90% of the inhabitants are males and 100% of them are sleazy, even the kids! Damage done; one old man knocked for six by both myself and then Spencer, hey I was going out the exit door, he was attempting to barge in before I had left the train, he deserved everything he got! 3 boys got ‘the bird’ from both Spencer and I and five young boys were ignored for their stupidity and massacring of the English language. One helpful man shunned as we had had enough by that stage! We then go searching for a card reader, after over 50 shops (Spencer sitting beside me claims it was 200!) I find one, and a tripod! Spencer had not been at all in favour of me buying another tripod that was anything less than perfect or anything cheaper than super-expensive as he claims that he is sick of hearing me bitch and whinge about substandard tripods....well I was going to wait till I got home for a great one, but I feel like I have a brand new BMW in my tripod (compared to resting a ridiculously expensive camera on a camp stool) and will make sure never to whinge about it’s short comings (at least in Spencers earshot!) we then attempt to find the truck, not as easy as we thought, round and round in circles, my feet aching from carrying my camera bag and tripod miles and miles, we arrive back at the hotel after way too may km’s and way too many people trying to extract coin out of us and after one man telling us to ‘walk like an Egyptian’, I mean what the? No one in Egypt walks like that!  

Today we spent the morning at the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, when lonely planet described it as having too many artefacts, I didn’t take too much notice, but there simply are too many artefacts! Over 100,000! It put me more in mind of a storage shed than a museum. We paid the extra to go into the royal mummies room, looking upon a 3000+ year old mummy is a weird experience. From there we checked out Tutankhamen’s treasures, another weird time, I vaguely remember seeing the Tutankhamen exhibition at the Melbourne museum when I was a kid, I don’t think I understood much about him at the time, but remember being amazed at the funary mask. Seeing it again on the other side of the world so many years on seemed surreal.  Spencer feels that they possibly would have used a copy for the exhibition in Melbourne, shall have to research that one!  Seeing so many artefacts has me in a mixed mind about the Cairo museum, way too much Egyptian history in one place, just imagine if the museum was destroyed? The reason it is all there was originally to protect if from tomb robbers, however so many of the statues and stone work could be returned to the temples, especially Karnak, which I said earlier appeared to me missing the finer details, well it is, they are all in the museum in Cairo!

Toilet break, Western Desert

Truck waits for us as Crystal Mountain, Western Desert