Grand Tour of Egypt: The White Desert

The white desert is exactly that – pure white, with eerie limestone formations rising up out of a limestone plain, with drifts of white sand moving back and forth across it. We visited various formations but really everywhere you looked erosion had produced shapes that only needed an imagination for them to become a gnome, a dinosaur, a profile, etc.
Eventually our drivers pulled up against a large rock which provided one side of a windbreak, with the two vehicles providing two more sides. While we explored, they set up a high wall on the fourth side, laid down a mattress floor and placed a low table in the middle of it.
We watched the sun go down on the desert scene but it was not dark since the nearly full moon created enough light for the white shapes to stand out eerily. Our drivers lit a fire with wood they had brought and we all sat around it while they cooked rice, vegetable stew and chicken in foil. It was bitterly cold so we were all wearing many layers and could hardly do up our coats. The fire was greatly appreciated and we sang and chatted.
The freezing night on the felucca had taught us that we needed to prepare for the night in good time and to have all possible requirements on hand. All of us slept in two lines in the enclosure but the drivers slept under piles of blankets on top of their vehicles. Luckily the snorers were not up our end and most people slept until a reasonable hour.
Keith woke early and went for a walk in time to see the sun rise and the light creep over the landscape. This description of our time in the white desert does not do justice to the feelings that we had – the sense that we were in a very special place sharing amazing things and the need to store up the memories because we knew that our photos could never do it justice.