For Spring Break this year, we headed into the desert
for our biggest desert trip ever. We covered almost
a thousand kilometers off road in a week. We traveled
with five cars. One of which belonged to our eccentric
Swiss-Egyptian guide Peter, who drives a highly modified
old Land Cruiser that everyone calls "The Toaster" because
it has a big square shaped silver compartment on the back.
Peter led us way off the beaten path! Except for
the first and last day, we saw no cars and few traces of
humans (at least modern day ones!). What we did
see was some amazing desert scenery. We followed
the Abu Muharek dune field for about 500kms. This
dune field is the longest in the world, stretching almost
a thousand kilometers. The
dunes were fun to drive on and amazing to view. On
the 4th day the dunes changed from common "parallel dunes"
to less common "cresent dunes". These
dunes were very tall and had solid ground at the bottom,
perfect for driving to the top on the gentle side and zooming
down the steep side at impossible angles for 100+ meters! What
an adrenalin rush! The downside was when Robyn almost
gave our friend Kim an adrenalin heart attack when he co-piloted
her somewhat erratic ascent of a dune Peter
calls "The Crater".
We slept in some amazing places. We camped
one night on a series of lake beds littered with fantastic
untouched Neolithic artifacts - arrowheads
and dozens of grinding bowls and grinding stones. We had
lots of fun exploring! Another
night we camped on the plateau of a dune. The edge provided
the perfect lazy boy chair to marvel at a sky untouched
by light pollution. And yet another night we made
gin and tonics on a dune crest while watching Zoë repeatedly
hurl herself down the side of the dune, using it as a slide,
as we watched the sun set.
Zoë is always amazing in the desert. She loves
playing in the sand and dunes and exploring for rocks. While
we are driving, she mostly sleeps, but she wakes up when
she feels the ride starting to get bumpy or erratic
and gives her feedback... "uhh ohh!"
Trip Lowlights
- Kim's bad jokes
- Robyn getting poo on her shirt while changing Zoë
- 40+ degree Celsius heat on the first two days
- Sand storm on the 6th day that stopped us from driving
for 3 hours
- Sounds that developed in everyone's car, including
a UFO from our hood that started about day 4.
Trip Highlights
- Kim's bad jokes!
- Great company
- Fantastic campsites
- Amazing dune driving
- The amazing team work of Peter and his assistant Bahdr
- Playing with Zoë in the sand
- The two showers we took
- Drinking beers on the top of "The Toaster" in the middle
of the sand storm
- 1 foot diameter spiral fossils
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