BootsnAll Travel Network



Bahariya Oasis, Egypt (Post #65)

Hey – It’s December – although it feels like summer here in Egypt. Michele here…Mike is sitting next to me and we are back in Cairo after spending 3 days in the Bahariya Oasis in the Western desert of Egypt.

So, last time I blogged I mentioned that we were about to take a night train from Luxor to Cairo. One of the most unbelievable things Mike and I have seen on this trip is the Luxor train station. First, there were so many people at this small train station, it was a total zoo. We would have never figured out where to go if we weren’t with a guy who was to show us which car to get on (remember everything is in Arabic). We followed the mob of people through a run down building to the train platform that was nothing but dirt and garbage. There were also old appliances laying in the dirt, and large broken down cabinets (like old, rotting, china cabinets) and a few refrigerators. We watched the (non-backpacking) tourists with wheeled luggage wheeling their luggage through the dirt, only to continually get stuck because there was some piece of food or garbage caught under their luggage wheel.

Anyway, we got all cozy in our bunk beds in our private sleeper car after we boarded the train but for whatever reason, the train made very abrupt stops about every hour or two. I mean, the stops were so sudden that I was thrown against the railing on my upper bunk. The train guy knocked on our door for our wake up call at 5:00am. We got up and waited for our breakfast, which was supposed to be served at 5:45. We waited and we waited…finally, the train guy comes around the says the train is 1.5 hours late. Sigh. We could have really used those precious hours of sleep especially because there were no morning stops. Oh well.

After spending one night back at our hostel in Cairo, we left the next morning at 7:00am to get on the public bus to the Bahariya Oasis. This 5.5 hour bus ride would take us to the Western desert of Egypt. More specifically, we were going to stay in an “oasis hotel” (hmmm…should be interesting) outside a small village called Bawiti. Several thousand people live in Bawiti and the population is 100% Muslim. The women wear black from head to toe, including black gloves, and a black veil over their eyes so that no part of their skin is showing. We got a pick up at the village bus station and in about 10 minutes we arrived at our “oasis hotel” – see the photo below.

Yes, this was a tiny hut and we used a communal squat toilet* and shower. The good news was that Mike and I were the only two people staying at the oasis hotel that night. Shortly after we arrived we took a tour of the village and surrounding desert area. This small village is known for it’s hot springs so we imagined something very beautiful and exotic when we were told we were going there. Uh..well…here is a picture of Mike next to the hot springs. It was hot and it was a spring – but it wasn’t quite what we imagined it was going to be.

After spending the night at our oasis hotel, we packed up and drove with our driver, Ahmed, out to the black desert on the way to the white desert. Here is a picture of the black desert:

After we saw the black desert, we drove several more hours before arriving at the white desert where we would spend the night. The landscape in the white desert was very strange. Some of the large mountains looked like icebergs and parts of it looked like whipped cream. There were also these strange rock formations throughout the white desert. Here is a picture of Mike and I near our camp in the middle of this very unusual white desert landscape.

We spent the night under 5 billion stars in the desert sky before getting up early (4:45am) to head back to Cairo. Tomorrow we fly from Cairo to Amman, Jordan on our way to Delhi, India where we will spend the next two weeks.

P.S.
*For those of you who don’t know what a squat toilet is, here is a picture I took at a rest stop. Note that the one at the oasis hotel was not as scary. If you can’t tell, the thing in the foreground is a bucket of water with a cup in it. You are supposed to use your left hand to wipe (yes, you read that right!) and then, using your right hand, you scoop up the water using the cup and rinse off your left hand and the toilet bowl. What Westerners (like us) do, is bring in our own toilet paper, use toilet paper to wipe, then use the water to rinse the toilet. You then have to carry your toilet paper out of the stall and throw it in a waste basket.

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2 responses to “Bahariya Oasis, Egypt (Post #65)”

  1. alician says:

    Get used to those squat toilets in India!! The train station also sounds like the one I experienced from Jaipur to Jodpur. Be sure and buy the BEST ticket you can if you take the train…

    -alician

  2. Linda Wack says:

    Thanks for the squat toilet tutorial! I will take nothing for granted anymore 🙂 I love reading about your adventures, the descriptions and photos are wonderful.

    linda

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