The Black and White Desert

Myself and ten friends took a trip this past weekend to a place called the Black and White Desert. I was expecting a desert that was striped Black and White, the kind of desert you would expect to make a very good zebra habitat, if zebras lived in deserts or, you know, anywhere near Egypt. Anyway. That was not what I got. Instead I got this:

There are more photos like these for those that want to take a look. I will posting most of my photos on Facebook. I am starting to cave and join the social network. God help me.

Anyway, it was a beautiful trip. First we were picked up by minibus at 8am and driven out to a little spring in the Western Desert for lunch. The food was great classical Egyptian food, and the area was beautiful. Got to see a couple guys herding their camels somewhere. Didn't get an amazing picture, I was caught by surprise.

This was one of the streams created by the pump which brought water up from the aquifer, which happened to run through the seating area in the common area.

Then we were driven out to the White Desert. The Black and White Desert is actually two deserts, one white and one black. The White used to be under the sea, leaving white shale-ish rock formations everywhere. The Black used to be a volcanic area and is covered in black volcanic rock.

Pam, you ready for this? Before reaching our destination we stopped at a place called Crystal Mountain. The little mountains here are all covered in crystal, and the one in the picture below is for you. I saved it. Thought you'd like that.

We spent the night out in the White Desert. It was nice to finally see the stars again. See the Milky Way. Also, desert foxes are very curious little fellows, and they will come to just within a few feet of you hoping for some handouts. Didn't get any pictures of them though. Also, I missed campfires a lot.

Here is where we stayed.

Fire!

This is one of our guides. Thank you for not letting me die in the desert.

The pot for bedouin tea sitting on the fire.

And my assorted travel companions gathered around the fire.

The next day we packed up and went out sandboarding. That's right, I have never been snowboarding, but I have been sandboarding. I personally think that makes me cooler than people that have been snowboarding  but not sandboarding. Not that I am particularly good at it - I did a rather stunning impression of a ragdoll being thrown violently down a flight of stairs on my first attempt. Not an exaggeration, the whiplash took 3 days to stop hurting. Nearly broke my neck, and I mean that in the most literal way. Most fun I've had in forever.

Unfortunately the person with video of me crashing and burning is not available tonight, but I will try and get the video from her and post it eventually. You know that sensation when you have water in your ear and the bubble finally pops and it flows out? "That horrible moment when..." you realize that it isn't water that is coming out of your ear canal but a ridiculous amount of sand.  It has been a week and I am still digging sand out of my ears. Wish that was just a joke. It's not. There is sand in my soul. It itches.

After the sandboarding we went and hiked a mountain in the Black Desert. This is possibly the most dangerous trail I have hiked. It isn't even that tall or that long, but it was very steep. And made of shale. Is that a foothold? No, that's God's idea of a dangerous practical joke. That said, the view was amazing.

After that we loaded up and went home. It was an amazing trip.

More pictures soon. Going out to Siwa soon. Look it up on Wikipedia. I'll put the remainder of my photos up on Facebook in a little bit.

Post again soon (still procrastinating on the Alexandria post, ugh),

Tim

Ain Sokhna

Hello again, all!

I am still waiting for pictures from Alexandria, but there is a lot going on here and other travels have taken place, and I know that this particular trip will be of some interest to at least a couple of you.

Here is where I went.

This was the view from the balcony of my hotel room. That is the Red Sea. My life is kind of awesome.

This was for a trip organized by International Student Affairs where they agreed to pay for 1 night in Ain Sokhna (turned out to be two, more on that shortly) if we would come and participate in a 2 or 3 hour session dealing with the issue of culture shock and how people are adjusting to Cairo. I figured that 2 or 3 hours of meeting for free meals and the Red Sea sounded like a good trade.

More pictures:

In addition to that was a trip to the world's oldest monastery, St. Antony's. I have some picture of St. Anthony's I got from a friend. I didn't take many pictures there. I have a thing about taking pictures of holy places - just feels wrong. Here's what I have so far.

And that's about it for Ain Sokhna. Although it was a bit of a pain getting back. We ended up havign to stay an extra night because and oil tanker flipped over on the highway out of Ain Sokhna, completely blocking traffic. So, extra day on the beach! Woo!

More updates soon, sorry they're coming so slowly. I'll try and get more out soon.