Desert camping and truck adventures....

Well, where to start! Seems like it's been months since i've written but it's not much longer than a week! Having such a great time so far so will attempt to fill you in, many days seems to be rolling into one though.....

So last Friday 16th I went to the pyramids in Giza. And the Sphinx too. Glad I went to see them, got a few photos but overall it's just a huge money making tourist attraction. But it is what it is and i'm glad I went. Saturday we finally got on the road....we met out truck (who has since been namd Foxy). A huge 4x4 bright yellow truck that is to be home to 22 of us plus our driver and tour leader for the next 3 and a half months. It takes a little getting used to but already figuring it out!

Saturday night was our first bush camp. We drove most of the day (yep, very hot in the truck and the toilet is, as you might guessed, the side of the road. anyway...) and basically drove into the desert west of Cairo. Set up tents, cooked dinner over the campfire and that was it. A strange experience that on our first night seemed so weird but already after a few more nights seems normal. That first night we slept just in sleeping bags on the sand, no tent. I must admit the foxes scared me. They won't bite but they do steal things so i think I was more worried about my flip flops than anything else. It's also not fun to wake at 3am in the desert and being able to see NOTHING other than 3 sets of green fox eyes a few feet away. Much fox talk insued and so that is why the truck is named Foxy. Seemed apt after our first night.

Sunday we packed up early and hit the road again. Drove a few hours to the Bahariyya Oasis. Arrived in the nearby village of Bawiti: a dusty and not very nice town. An oasis, I also discovered, is not like on tv. It basically means there is water in the desert somewhere, underground usually, so people settle there. There are villages and they can get water to live off, grow food etc. So not the little pool with palm trees....anyway.... went to Ahmeds Safari Camp where we were allowed use the showers, we all felt very much in need of them after our first night sleeping in the desert and not being able to shower! We then set off in 4 jeeps to the White desert. Went via the Black desert too (one has black stoney sand, the other, yes you've guessed it, white chalk like sand/limestone). A little off roading down sand dunes was a little scary, but we made it. Our drivers were also our cooks and prepared us a traditional meal (rice, chicken veg etc) which we ate around a campfire while our drivers turned cooks then became the entertainment and played instruments, sang songs and made us dance with them. One also found 3 japenese tourists somewhere and made them join in...very funny....but there were lots of others camping in the desert that night too so he must have found them wandering! That night we slept on mats all lined up like at a slumber party, the foxes didn't bother me so much and the stars looked good. It also became evident who the snorers were from the night before, and no, I wasn't one of them!

Monday we headed off early after a morning walk around the spectacular White Desert...drove to the Farafra Oasis, nice town. Visited Badr's museum, he's a sculptor that has built his own house/art gallery which is really beautiful. Drove on to the Dakhla Oasis and went to the town of Mut (pronounced Moot). Went to a beautiful place called the Bedouin Oasis Village which had lovely huts and rooms, although we camped on the ground out the back! Still meant we could use the toilets and showers, now considered a luxury after camping in the desert!

Left Mut early on and went to the nearby town of Al-Qasr. Stayed in a place called Mohammeds restaurant, baically he rents out his roof and you can sleep up there in sleeping bags and he makes an amzing dinner and breakfast too. Unfortunately I got to experience little of this as I spend nearly 24hours in bed. Quite sick and feeling miserable. Combination of the heat, dehydration and plain stomach feeling dodgy. Mohammed did keep making me this anais tea though which I didn't like but i do think helped my recovery. He also didn't charge me any money for taking one of the rooms for rent while everyone else slept on the roof!! Which I was very thankful for.

So that brings us to Wednesday (the days are going so fast!!) and another bush camp. Quite a few hours driving so nothing too eventful, set up camp as usual and got working on dinner (my cook group won't be on duty for another week yet so i have yet to figure out how to cook a meal for 24 people over a campfire! everyone else seems to be doing well though!). I had an early night and stayed away from the beer yet again as I still wasn't 100%.

So since Thursday I have been in Luxor staying at the Rezeiky campsite. Although it also has rooms so most of us opted to pay extra for a bed! at 3 euro extra a night it's hard to say no. We had a group dinner that night with the other truck (another 25 doing the same trip but travelling a day or 2 ahead of us although we will meet them along the way). Had some traditional music and dancing by a whirling dervish (a man that twirls ALOT wearing a colourdey skirt and balancing baskets, that's what I gathered anyway...). Then we hit the town. Ended up in Murphys Irish Bar (of course!) and singing and dancing to the early hours. Jumped in the pool when we got home at 2am too!

So Friday was a lazy day by the pool.......

Today though I was up at 5am. we set off on a boat across to the West Bank of the Nile (we're staying East Bank) to meet the donkeys. I opted for a taxi but most of the others travelled by donkey to the Valley of the Kings. Packed with tourists but really good. Basically it is a valley where they have discovered 63 ancient Egyptian tombs the most famous of which being that of Tutankhamun because when discovered in 1922 it was the only one never to have been opened before the rest had been ransacked over the last 3-4000 years! Got to go into 3 tombs, Rameses 1, Rameses 111 and Rameses 1X (original with the names weren't they?!). Amazing paintings and hieroglyphics inside. Then we climbed a bit of of a mountain (only for a little bit!) and walked to the Valley of the Workers. By now it must have been 35 degrees and I'll admit I didn't pay as much attention but from what I gathered they weren't the tombs of Pharohs but of ordinary people, scientists that worked at this place. Hmmm....I just realised i don't know anything about this one. So saw 2 tombs, some great paintings inside. Last stop was Habu Temple. An amazing temple built by Rameses ( 11 i think!) which is decorated completely in hieroglyphics and carvings. It is huge and must have been spectacular thousands of years ago when it was all painted in colour and still had a roof. (The roof was removed 600 years ago to built bridges in Cairo, suppose they didn't care about ancient history back then....).

So the plan for tonight is a karaoke bar i think!! And then a lazy day tomorrow although I want to see Karnak temple before I leave Luxor on Monday morning. Next stop is Aswan where we are based for 5 days before catching the ferry to Sudan. All going great so far and still another 3 and a half months to go!