Yeah, that's the desert all right! Temperatures were pretty reasonable in the 30's (celsius) and sunny. We left school at about 7am and had to drive about 7 hours to reach the Bahariyya oasis, and what is known as the black desert and just beyond that the white desert. The black desert gets its name from the top layer of basalt which has settled on the top layer of sandstone. Basalt is a harder material than the sandstone and so it sits on top (see how the sand looks dirty in the pictures above and below?). The white desert gets its name from the large amount of white limestone which is found there in interesting formations. From a distance some of this limestone looks soft, almost like snow but is in fact quite hard.
The trip consisted of 6 groups each with about 20 kids and 4 chaperones. There were 3 camps and two groups shared a camp each night and traveled together during the day. That means that we didn't see the other groups until the end of the trip. This years trip involved hiking to the next camp each day between 15 and 20 km!! Each group had 10 camels that we were supposed to be able to take turns riding but due to an unfortunate accident in which one of the chaperones (in one of the other groups) was seriously injured within an hour of our arrival we decided the camels could not be trusted and instead had them slog our gear instead of the students.
Them's the camels.
Them's the students.
This is our short walk into the camp on day one. Believe it or not, this used to be the bottom of the ocean floor millions of years ago and there is plenty of evidence. There are sea shells, snail shells, fossils, etc... everywhere.
This part of the desert was stunning!
Our camels and some students before they started riding day one.
Our directions on day one to find camp were walk that way (picture bedouin man pointing vaguely toward the horizon) about 5km then turn slightly right. Off we went and we looked...
and we looked....
and we looked....
and we rested....
Not sure if this qualifies as a sign of life in the desert but I have this thing about dead looking trees that apparently sometimes spills over into dead looking bushes.
Same bush, more sand.
And eventually we found camp!
Welcome to camp, this is the mess tent where the kids ate and the food was prepared. We ate like kings (and queens)! Each night we were treated to Bedouin tea which is delicious. Aside from that we had camel blankets and sleeping mats to bunk on so first order of camp was claiming your patch of sand to sleep on.
Did I mention there was alot of sand?
That dune in the shadow above was next to camp and stood about 50 feet tall. The kids had a blast jumping off the top and rolling all the way to the bottom. When we arrived there was not a foot print to be seen.
Here are the camels with kids arriving at camp day one.
Here are the kids on the dune I mentioned earlier, gives better perspective with the kids on it.
View from the top of one of the sandstone rock formations next to camp. Of course, if there's something that can be climbed, count on an 8th grade boy to climb it! OK the male chaperones too, hey it was fun and the view was spectacular at sunset and sunrise (yup I saw both).
That's the birds eye view of camp one. The 4 tents were just for changing, everyone (except Wendy) slept outside under the stars. And oh! what stars! More on that later.
Morning Day two: all the kids were very excited to go for a run with Wendy. They woke me up at 4:30am ugh! I assured them Wendy would not be up for at least another hour since it was still technically night time. The moon was out and high overhead casting a brilliant light on everything so it seemed more like twilight and you could see quite well. At about 5:30, tired of trying to sleep through the boys excited whispers I got up to go for a run of my own. The sun was not up yet and the temperature was perfect. I went about two miles in the direction of the below picture. The solitude was awesome and it was really enjoyable. The soft sand was a challenge in places but that added to the experience.
These were sunrise pictures from near camp after I got back.
Yup, sand, sand and more sand. Hey, it wouldn't be a desert without sand!
Beautiful isn't it?
and camels!
Ok, day two after breakfast, we packed our stuff on the camels and left camp about 9am. Camp two is roughly 20 km away. That's over 12 miles! The kids did great, no complaints and they kept a good pace. We stopped a few times along the way for rests (and to count kids) and to empty our shoes of sand. I had on my Montrail trainers and I got so much sand in my shoes I didn't have room for my toes! Needless to say I had to battle the beginning of blisters all the way by dumping my shoes every couple hundred yards.
About 1pm we rolled into our lunch spot where the guides had set up a nice place in the shade for us. Mark, one of the chaperones had a GPS and announced that we were 8.7km from our original camp the way the crow flies which means we had easily covered 10km. After lunch we decided the kids had walked plenty for day one and we suggested to them that those who wanted to could go in the jeeps to our next camp. 12 decided they still wanted to walk and so two of the chaperones struck out again. We put as many kids as possible in the two jeeps we had and they head off. That left about 10 of us to wait for their return which they did an hour later. We found the walkers shortly thereafter and picked up 3 of them, resupplied the rest with water and left them to finish the hike into camp. They were thereafter known as our ironmen and women.
Kids eating lunch day two.
Really neat archway that was right near our second camp site.
Area around campsite two
Our second campsite. Camels on the left.
Evening time at camp two we had another great meal and afterwards had a fire where we made smores using nutello ( I know its wrong but you try keeping herseys chocolate from melting out here!) Mark brought his guitar and played a few tunes before handing it off to a couple of students who really did a great job, before long the kids were singing and it turned into a regular jamm session. It was dark by now and the moon was late in rising so Mark had his telescope set up for us to check out Jupiter, really cool stuff! Mark is what we affectionately call a desert rat, meaning he loves the desert and comes out here often. He's also a wealth of information on just about everything to do with it, including the geology. It would be impossible to go into the desert overnight and come out again without becoming an avid star gazer. With no light interference you can see virtually every star and it's truly spectacular beyond words. Mark is also an amateur astronomer and he showed us how to find the Andromeda galaxy which looks like a smudge against the night sky. I also found an interesting fuzzy looking star near Perseus that upon looking it up when I got back was actually Coment Holmes. Very Cool!! Just lying on my sleeping pad looking up at the Milky Way with my ganoculars was amazing. I was able to see several shooting stars and even a few satellites! The moon rose around 11pm obliterating much of the stars with its bright light but watching it come up large and bright over the hills on the horizon was super with the ganoculars.
Daytime again and once more we rise with sun or before. We break camp, breakfast and we're off again toward Camp 3. We estimate it at about 20km but know there is an oasis about 4 hours walk where we plan to have lunch. I've abandoned my trainers, tying them to my pack for backup, and instead have opted for my Tevas with socks. Taped my piggies to prevent blisters and find that the Tevas work great in the soft sand. Self-Bailing shoes are the way to go out here in the soft stuff. I learn to emulate the way the camels walk, flat footed, equal pressure pressing straight down. Life is good.
Wendy, looking chic in her desert fatigues. Those Brits always look stylish!
Life, yes even out here it survives...
We stopped to rest in the shade here for a few minutes...
The camels chose to keep going...
Very dry stuff, but it was alive...
Camels chowing down at the lunch stop, I should have gotten a picture of this place but the heat must have gotten to me. The oasis we stopped had quite a few palms for plenty of shade and this is where we had lunch. Tuna sandwiches and a host of other stuff. We spread out on blankets and took a short snooze while the kids explored the spring water that flowed into a large concrete foundation. It was big enough for 8 of the kids to get in and get wet and that's exactly what they took turns doing.
Camp Three! We jeeped the kids into camp after lunch deciding we'd had enough walking through this part of the desert and it being halloween we had plenty of activities planned for the kids once in camp. Camp was at the edge of the White Desert and these interesting rock formations are everywhere. This one looked to me like an old train engine, can you see it?
This is Omar with the premo sleeping spot. He found a rock that was shaped just like a lounge chair, with the blanket and sleeping pad the only thing missing was the drink stand and flatscreen tv!
Kids bunked out all over the place. As the sun was going down and the light was getting softer a few of us took a short walk to get some photos of these large rock shapes. Check'm out.
These type of formations look like mushrooms.
Camel Prints
Insect life.
More camel prints
Back at camp we had dinner, gave the kids 15 minutes to get a costume together for trick or treating while the chaperones divided up the candy and set off for different spots where the kids would have to find us. There was loads of candy and the kids really scored here. After that the rest of the night passed in a sugar-induced fog, we had glow sticks and once broke open so Mark dabbed it all over himself until he was glowing and looked like he had radiation burns. I vaguely remember duct taping some to my frisbee and going off into the dark of night with Mark, Matt and John to try it out. What fun! we had to throw the frisbee based on hearing the person call out because it was pitch black. The glow sticks worked great and stayed on for well over an hour until we were wiped out.
The next day we headed back out to the road to meet the bus and prepare for our 8 hour ride back to Cairo.
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