Garnett's Down Under: 9th November Oasis Trip

After Ivy’s visit and the wedding we still had a few days spare so we had booked a desert tour with Priti, a friend from church. The mini bus picked us up from the apartment at 7 am Wednesday morning (it was 7:15 by the time we realised they had the wrong building number and let them know where we were). In we piled with our bags, camera and itinerary for the day

Day 1: Cairo – Bahariya Oasis (350 Km)

· Pick up from you location in Cairo (airport/ station / hotel).

· Driver to Bahariya Oasis 350 kilometres (219 miles) ahead. Midway in the journey at 155 kilometres (97 miles) is a rest stop with a gas station and a cafeteria Twenty-two kilometres (14 miles) from the beginning of the road, the railway from Helwan joins the road and follows it all the way to reach Managim.(First Village of Bahariya oasis).Beyond Managim, the main road continues to Bawiti. At 316 kilometres (197 miles) the terrain changes once again as small conical hills begin to emerge.

· Arrival in Bawiti, we check in hotel and relax. Then we start tour of main attractions of the Oasis.

· First we go the see Museum of the Golden mummies where 10 of roman golden mummies in view selected from 10.000 intact roman burial chambers discovered in the 1990s.

· Not far from the Museum, we head to slightly south of the spring of the same name are four 26th-dynasty chapels that together form the Temple of Ain al-Muftella.

· Climb down to see the colored Tomb of Noble Bannitu with its fascinating decoration of Universal Day.

· Then we visit small, two-chamber temple is the only place in Egypt where Alexander the Great's effigy and cartouche have been found.

· We take the spring of cold water is used by both tourists and locals as a swimming hole. It is cool and refreshing on hot desert days.

· Climbing the Black Mountain known as English Mountain. As on summit are the ruins of a World War I lookout post, which was manned by Captain Williams, after whom the mountain is sometimes called.

· Visit Gebel el Dist Locals call it Magic Mountain because of the way the light plays on the texture and material of the mountain during the different hours of the day.

· Back to hotel. Dinner and overnight.

So this was our day! The midway stop was interesting

Overpriced food and smelly toilets meant we didn’t stay too long. The hotel was nice, a new place called the Sandrose. The water needed turning on in the rooms and there was a lead missing from the back of the TV that was quickly found as soon as they realised what we needed.

Once we had put our bags away it was time to go to lunch, the local terrain meant we moved to a 4x4, and then back into the village to a seedy looking cafe full of Arab men smoking from shisha pipes and watching the latest Star Trek movie in English with Arabic subtitles on Panorama Action. The food was excellent, chicken and salad, pasta soup and green beans in a tomato sauce with the usual flatbread. From here we went to the golden mummies (cira 330 bc). This is the building they were in!

Not very inspiring! The tombs were equally uninspiring in their locations but fascinating to go down into. Once again the no camera rule was in operation so only shots of the outside.