Camping in the Sahara

me in the sahara desert at sunset ...taken by miss carrie kennedy
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We booked this trip through our hotel in Cairo.  We took a five hour bus ride out to the closest oasis to Cairo to the Bedowin Village to stay at Badr's Sahara Camp.

When we arrived we ate lunch and explored the camp.  The camp was comprised of 10ish thatched huts surrounded by nothing but desert.  It was really cute.  It was just us and a really sweet Swiss woman.  Later that afternoon, Badr, our guide, took us on a drive to see the salt lake, an apptly named lake with really salty water.  We drove through sand dunes like maniacs....the Duke boys have nothing on Badr's dune driving.  Crazy and a bit scary.

carrie in the sahara desert
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We watched the sunset and then headed to the hot springs.  Badr dropped his cell phone into the hot springs and promtly began undressing.  Carrie offered to hold his clothes but he yelled, 'hold my feet'.  Picture a very fat, nearly naked, Egyptian guy with most of his body head first in a hot spring and carrie grabbing his ankles and using all her might to keep him from falling in all the way.  I was hiding behind the car laughing my ass off.  Finally he emerged, red as the devil with his cell phone.  I wish i had a picture.

Campfire
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We had some Bedowin tea by the campfire and went to bed.  An interesting fact is that the desert is absolutely freezing at night.  We managed to stay warm enough even though we now have half the wardrobe we had a week ago...thank you gulf air.

The next day, we headed out to camp under the stars.  On the way, we stopped to explore the black desert, its black.  We then broke YET ANOTHER VEHICLE.  That's right...broke down in the middle of the sahara desert.  We were only stranded for an hour while at least 15 men took turns tryin to 'fix' the car by pulling parts off and banging it with hammers.  Eventually, they gave up and we joined up with the other two vehicles in our party and we bumbed rides with them.

We made our way to the white desert which is absolutely spectacular and like nothing else anywhere.  Its stark white with huge rock formations everywhere.  There are fossilized sea shells all over the place.  We made it in time for sunset and set up camp.  This consisted of starting a fire and throwing down sleep bags.  The guys cooked us dinner and played flutes and drums and sang for us while taking huge hits off their bong.

The cast of characters we were camping with was something out of a movie.  Picture five high Egyptian men, 2 really young Korean girls who were falling asleep around the campfire and were beside themselves the whole time, 5 italian students studying Arabic in Egypt, a couple that met while in the harry krishna temple in Spain, us, and our Swiss friend.  It was surreal.  That night we slept under the stars in the desert, counting shooting stars to fall asleep and of course FREEZING our ASSES off all night.  I mean FREEZING.

The next morning we took a walk, had some breakfast and headed out.  Our landrover magically appeared, all fixed, in the middle of the night and we were back on track.  We went to the old white desert, the 'crystal mountain' which is actually a hill but it was filled with quartz and other exciting rocks, and finally back to camp for lunch before we hopped on the bus again.  5 hours back to Cairo.

It was a great experience.