We left Siwa at 7.30am, in two big Land Cruisers. Artur made sure we were with the fast driver from the day before, as we had so much fun in his car. We covered about 450km, but it took us about 9 hours! Probably because of the 7 military checkpoints that we had to go through on the way. We had to have a whole range of permits and they even put a plain clothes military man in our 4WD. Apparently he was there to protect us, but he spoke perfect English and was eavesdropping on our conversations, so he was probably there to spy on us and the Intrepid Tour Company.
We drove really fast for most of the time, which helped to cool us down as the wind blew through the windows. There was no airconditioning, so we had to put water on ourselves and on our scarfs to cool us down. It helped a lot. The worst part was when we had to keep stopping at the military checkpoints, because we were stuck either sitting in the hot car, or standing in the hot sun with no cover. No win situation.
We did stop at some pretty incredible places on the way though. One of the places was a huge rock formation that towered above the sand in the desert. We sat in the shade from this rock to have our lunch.
We also wandered out into the empty expanse of desert. It was cool to make the first footprints in huge sections of untouched sand. There were lots of bones in the sand around the rock. Maybe animals seek out the shade when they are sick or dying. 
Our driver was just as speedy this day as he was the day before. He was probably practising for the Pharaon races in Egypt. He had 18 years of experience in driving on the sand dunes, and we could definitely tell, as we outsped the other 3 cars in our convoy time and time again.
We arrived in the town of Bahariya by about 4.30pm, and collapsed into our airconditioned rooms. The town was pretty unimpressive compared to Siwa, so we just hung around our hotel and relaxed.
After dinner we hung out on the roof of the hotel, and chatted. The girls were all talking in a big group about typical girly topics, while Artur was having a more mature conversation with Wahid. They were talking about the contemporary history of Egypt. They chatted about the general social and economic conditions of the country, and about family life. Families these days usually have around 4 people, but they used to be bigger, about 8-9 people. Contraception, anasthetics and drinking alcohol are forbidden, amongst other things. However medical care and education are free. Uneducated people have to join the army for 3 years, and educated people only have to join for 1 year. Tourism dropped dramatically after the terrorist attacks in the Valley of the Queens. However people are slowly starting to return. They also talked about the history of Egypt, and about the English occupation. Apparently the English were here for 70 years. They built a lot of modern infrastructure, but were fought out of Egypt by military revolutionaries.
Second Day in the Desert
There was a group of little kids playing in the water, and some more kids playing with a donkey. One of the kids was hitting the donkey with a stick, great upbringing. The poor donkey looked like a little baby itself, so we felt pretty sorry for it.
One of the little kids was posing for a photo near the pool. He was very tiny and cute, and was eating a carrot. Loren was taking pictures, and came up with some pretty funny ones, when he put the tiny carrot in front of his legs. He looked like a little cupid.
We had lunch while we were at the little hut by the spring. Wahid was wearing short and a turban on his head, so he looked pretty funny. He kind of looked Indian, so he played on it and pretended to be charming a snake.
We continued on the road past some huge black mountainous rocks. The sand in this area was completely covered in black stuff too. Apparently there used to be an active volcano here, and all of the black is ash and volcanic rock.
We stopped at an incredible place called Crystal Mountain as well. It was a huge structure of rocks, but threaded all throughout it are big sections of crystal. The mountain was soon taken over by a horde of Asian tourists with cameras, so we left quickly. 
We drove quickly through the desert, and soon we made it past the black desert, and into the White Desert. This was probably the most amazing place we'd seen on our journey. The desert surrounding us was filled with pure white stone sculptures, which looked like they had been placed there for an art show.
The first section of the White Desert that we visited was the 'Mushroom' Section. Here, every rock looked like a mushroom! We had fun playing with the huge mushrooms, pretending to eat them, pick them, hang off them. 
We also visited another section of the White Desert, which is also made up of huge white sculptures, but these ones vary in what they are supposed to look like. One looked like a camel, another looked like a Sphinx etc.
Camping in the Desert
We drove further into the White Desert and picked a random piece of land to camp for the night. Our drivers parked the cars close to each other, in a right angle, and used the sides of the cars as walls. They hung big rugs along the side of each car, creating a little half-house for us. We had a big rug on the ground as well, with cushions and a little table.
Soon after we arrived, the sun started to set. It was amazing, we were surrounded by white sculptures of rock on all sides. The huge orange sun was setting on one side, creating an incredible range of colours across the horizon.
On the other side of us, there was a huge almost full moon, already shining in the sky. The air was starting to cool, so we had a campfire set up. Everyone sat around the fire watching the sky, or taking photos of the amazing scenery.
As soon as it got dark, we were visited by a local. This visitor was a little fluffy fox with big ears. We were quite surprised at how brave he was, he ran up to the campsite and snuck around the edges. One of the guys had left a cup of fresh guava juice near the car, and the little fox started drinking out of it. Whenever we came close, he would run off to a distance, but he always came back. It wasn't hard to tell where he was, because of the little prints that he made in the sand.
After nature watching for a while, we sat down to a dinner that our drivers cooked for us. It was pretty tasty, considering the conditions that it was prepared in. We had a soup filled with pasta that looked like sunflower seeds, which is a pretty typical dish here. They also managed to make us a chicken, vegetable and rice dish too.
After dinner, our drivers started playing some bedouin music, and Wahid encouraged us all to dance. Most of the girls got up to dance, Loren did pretty well at picking up the hip shaking Egyptian style. Artur preferred to just watch and photograph the festivities.
While our dancing party was going on, we were joined by some Chinese tourists. They were even more daggy than our group of travellers. The danced purely for the photographs. Once their picture was taken, they sat down and shut off. Actually they were here in Egypt to learn Arabic, and they were able to converse a little bit.
After smoking shishas by the fire, we finally decided it was time for bed. We had some little mattresses spread out over the whole rug next to the cars. This became one big communal bed under the stars. We all lay in a line like sardines, tucked inside our sleeping bags. Everyone rushed for the middle places, so that they felt less exposed to whatever creatures came wandering by in the night.
The next morning, we woke up to find little animal tracks all around our mattress. The girls on the ends freaked out and wanted to know what had been crawling by their heads in the middle of the night. We figured out that they were too small to be a fox, they were more likely to be from scarabs. These big black beetles are everywhere in the desert, and they are also known as 'dung beetles', for their interesting taste in food.
To see the photos from the post in slideshow mode, click on on the link below:
White Dessert
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