Going back to the trip, we left the Black Desert and arrived at our hotel in the Bahariya Oasis shortly before dark. Lea, Frank and I were disappointed that the new section they were building in January was still under construction. This was the most disappointing oasis hotel experience we had had on our Inspection Trip in January and, unfortunately, the hotel hadn't changed any since. One trip participant commented to Lea the following morning that the hotel was the example of what happens when men build, design, run and maintain a hotel without any input from women! He's probably correct. The hotel grounds and common areas are nice enough considering you're in very rural Egypt in the poorest oasis in the desert. But the rooms sorely lack any comforts--for instance, no shower curtains. Like our visit in January, we had low water pressure and could only get a trickle of water from our hand-held shower head. Lea was exhausted and after spending the night in the desert we both desperately wanted a nice hot shower, but none was to be found at this hotel. After several visits from maintenance, and a shower head replacement, we figured we had it as good as it was going to get and took our showers.
We went down to dinner hungry but for what turned out to be the poorest offerings we'd had all trip. There was little available to us other than salads. We sat around our table eating quietly looking every bit the travel-weary group we were. Many of us had been traveling together for three weeks which included a major Dragon energy working (and all that entails) with Samuel--we had good reason to be whipped. As Lea would say, we looked like we'd been "rode hard and put up wet." which is a phrase I think she picked up from Gwen back in her horseback riding days. Lea retired early, but I was concerned about going back to the room at 8:00 p.m. I knew that I should avoid going to bed that early if I wanted a full night's sleep.
So I joined another table and we chatted for a while. We left the dining room and as I was walking back to our room, I stumbled across a small group of ours sitting out in the garden chatting. The temperature was delightful, so I asked if I could join them. It was a delightful exchange of White Desert trip stories. Jeanean was sharing stories as only Jeanean can with Catherine S. egging her on every bit of the way! It was a hoot and I'm glad that our guide, Mena, was a part of this experience. He commented on how early we retired every night, especially when we had an early morning the next day. On this night he was able to see that not everyone was in bed by 10:00 p.m.
The following morning was a check out and a 9:00 a.m. departure. The tombs and museum of the Golden Mummies didn't open until 9:00. So, we made our brief visits and then stopped at a coffee shop under the guise of a bathroom stop for our group, but I think the real reason was that our drivers wanted to have a "shisha"--tobacco water pipe. After spending about 30-minutes there, they took us to a little oasis very near the hotel where we had spent the previous night. We walked back through some date palms and ended up having a delightful picnic in the shade of the trees consisting of: eggplant; tomatoes, olives and cucumbers; falafel; bananas, pears and dates collected from the trees we were sitting under for desert, and more.
There are many varieties of dates all of which can, and are, eaten at different times of the year. The picnic dates (as you can see) were yellow and tasted a little like caramel! Yum! At the restaurant in the Khan al Khalili market, we ate fresh red dates. These were sweet, had the texture of a crisp apple with a similar water contecnt, but were a little starchy. Apparently, these dates can be eaten once dried, as well, which must occur around Christmas time, as our guide referred to these as Christmas dates.
When we arrived at the picnic site, we walked past a donkey. Once we were settled in at our picnic area, Lea remembered we had an apple in our backpack and wanted to feed it to the donkey. When she was in college, she used to train donkeys for the Shriner Circus! She loves donkeys, and animals in general, so we went back so she could feed the apple to it.
We then loaded up in the Land Cruisers and headed towards Cairo. Shortly after we were on the main road one of the cruisers had a flat tire. We watched as they changed the tire and had us on the road again in less than 5-minutes. In watching at how efficiently this took place I assume this was a common occurrence in the desert. I was right. It happened again with another one of our vehicles later that afternoon. They must go through a lot of tires!
We made another unexpected stop enroute. Like the Black Desert stop, this wasn't something we had experienced in January and it was delightful. We went off road and up a steep sand dune for a photo op. The view was stunning!
Also stunning, was the fact that what we were standing on (had driven up) was a dune of compacted and crushed seabed shells.
What ended up happening was that every jeep had a photo taken with their driver. It all started rather spontaneously with jeep #1. Each vehicle "stole" their idea and wanted a photo with our fellow travelers and driver. After we did this, we agreed that we wanted a photo taken with everyone. To make a tri-pod, we attached Don's camera to a portable and flexible tri-pod I had brought with me. We then attached it to a hand-hold on one of the vehicles. Don set his camera to timer mode so he could join the frame. Thanks, Don, for catching this Kodak moment for us all and for emailing the photo to me so quickly so I could post it.
We had climbed up the dune in the Land Cruisers following a switch-back style path. However, we went straight down the steep side of the dune on our departure!
We hit the outskirts of Cairo around 5:30 p.m. Friday is the Islamic holy day of the week, so Thursday afternoon traffic is like our Friday afternoon rush hour traffic (but since it's Cairo you can multiply it by 100!). Traffic was bumper to bumper and moved at a snails pace! We didn't arrive at our hotel until 7:10 p.m. Eighteen of the 27-member group had a 12:30 a.m. flight, so we needed to check in to the hotel, shower/shave, repack and gather back in the hotel lobby at 9:00 p.m. for an airport transfer! Obviously, this was a real challenge to do after such a tiring day of travel and a long, 3-three week trip! It was a mad dash, and I didn't think we were going to be able to do it, (I think it took all the energy Lea could muster to be able to do all of this at such a frantic pace) but we all made it back in time to leave for the airport. Traffic again was very heavy and chaotic--typical Cairo traffic! Earlier in the trip, we had noticed that they steer their grocery carts the same way they drive. At the airport we learned that they do the same with the luggage carts. To us, it's complete madness, but to them it's organized chaos.
Well, the airport was stressful, but we made it through the gauntlet and our flight seemed to leave on time which leads us to where we are now, in Richmond. It looks like our flight to Cincy is getting ready to board, so I'll close for now.
Thanks and Love,
Stuart
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