Exploring the Dakhla Oasis | Timeless Travels Magazine

The Temple of Deir el-Haggar

It was dawn when I left the White Desert for Farafra. The rising sun had already revealed the petrified zoo of chickens, horses, and sphinxes that had commanded my attention the previous evening. Eroding limestone giants, stretched and unfolded themselves for the new day. The desert foxes, gaunt-faced and curious, had long since scurried away, fed, if not full, from scraps of bread offered by Saleh, my driver. White, jagged splats of limestone appeared like frozen waves upon a yellow ocean. The air was crisp.

A short drive later and I was in Farafra, a half-finished vision of a Wild West outpost, where Saleh, paid and pleased, dropped me off and departed back for Bahariya Oasis, performing an illegal-in-forty-countries U-turn in the process. There, following true Western movie convention, as a stranger in an unfamiliar town, I was immediately picked up by the local police and questioned on my reasons for being in the oasis; more importantly, they wanted to know when I'd be leaving and suggested that I take the 2pm bus.

I had no real problem with this, as I'd planned on taking public transport for the next leg of my journey anyway, but soon after, over Turkish coffee in a local cafe, I was invited by two sporty Spanish honeymooners and their rotund guide, Mohammed, to join them on their whirlwind tour of the oases. After all, we were heading in the same direction: Dakhla Oasis, the third oasis on my trip through the Western Desert, where a variety of ancient sites neatly illustrate Egypt's long history with these isolated Saharan islands.

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