El-Beshmo Lodge Hotel Bawiti

In our own leisurely way after breakfast we headed off for the first part of our tour around Bahariya Oasis, where the salt lake is and some of the hot and cold springs. Although the springs are apparently natural, the cement basin in which the generator pumps them into makes us think slightly otherwise. Although they are still lovely for a nice dip on a scorching desert day. <br>From there we set off into Sahara Suda (Black Desert) formed by ...

We left our rather large bags behind in Cairo and made our way to the station where a bus awaited us to take us to Bahariya Oasis. <br>The bus took us through some amazing desert scenery, mind you most of the time we were made to keep the curtains shut to try and keep the air conditioning going as much as possible. <br>Arriving in Bawiti we got swamped with safari touts (we new this was going to happen, so we came prepared, we already new were we wanted to ...

We woke up early, got cleaned up, at some breakfast outside (beans with tomoatoes, flatbread, cheese &amp; jam) and hopped in a 4x4 to go into the desert. We drove about 50km into the Black Desert. The sand is peppered with black lava rock making everything look dusted in black. Our driver (Mahmoud, but we called him Bluto) was awesome. We drove up and over sand dunes going so fast - it was like being on a roller ...

We woke up and got rolling a little late. Jet lag has been tough this time. Just start getting into a deep sleep around 6am, so we are not sleeping much in the night, and sleep through the morning. The call to prayer can is transmitted over a loudspeaker at 4am (and several other times during the day) - pretty cool. We went into downtown Cairo for about an hour ...

... It was a good night. I therefore have a hard time understanding how on that very night and only a short cab ride away, terrorists struck the Khan Khalili market, killing one victim while injuring many more. Even though I have been to that market more times than I can count, even though I carefully scrutinized the nationalities of the victims and called all my friends who may have been there, and even though the State Department recently sent out a general ...

... busier town center. It is common in Egypt for hotel and shop owners to offer you tea before any decision or price talk has been made. This is how we met Max, the hotel manager. Over the next three days we learned that Max, affectionately Crazy Max, was quite an entertaining, 40 something, WWF loving, chain smoking (and crosseyed), Bariya local who really liked listening to our ipods- especially rap songs. That's him in one of the photos with the ...

... set up inside the building and the lads did the face-mecca dance on what looked like a mini golf putting green and drank some tea before getting back on board. Egypt's Western Desert stretches from The Nile and the Mediterranean to the Sudanese and Libyan borders, rolliing far into Africa. We only scartched the surface on this safari. The delightful Nasser guide picks us up from the middle of Bawiti oasis village and takes us to the peaceful desert camp called ...

... the cleanest environment we've had yet and some excellent food. We started out late the next morning for our desert safari. We hopped back into the 4 X 4 with Moustafa after Hany, our guide assured us that today would be more slow as yesterday was completely transportation and not for fun. This is after he also informed us that they NEED to go fast so that we dont "feel the bumps as much" to which the Engineer in our group appropriately ...

... the whole drive had to be the lunch in the sand dunes. Perched on the edge of the Great Sand Sea, it was awe-inspring to take a look around and see nothing other than sand and sky. Imun made a great lunch, tasting all that much better because of the venue. It was 4pm before we reached Baharia... a long day. We settled into our room and noted the provided mosquito net. Having nothing really to do in the evening, I introduced Wael and Rado to Milles Borne. Oh ...