White Desert Adventure

This story began in Washington, DC – where close friends Brian and Kim planned a spring holiday to visit their friends Paul and Kathleen who had recently moved to Egypt. An ambitious 15 day itinerary had them traveling throughout the country visiting pyramids, ancient tombs and temples, bustling markets, seaside resorts and sprawling deserts – with frequent stops in between at the home base or Paul and Kathleen’s apartment in Cairo. Paul and Kathleen decided to get away from the busy city for a weekend and join their touristic friends on an overnight outing into the White Desert.   

Kathleen pulled some strings and arranged for a professional desert rally driver, Sayed, to guide the group of four on an overnight desert safari. Sayed previously guided Kathleen and her friend on a desert safari and she raved about his tremendous off-road driving skills. After meeting Sayed in the oasis town of Baweeti, the group loaded their gear into his rugged Land Cruiser and was soon driving away from civilization and into the great White Desert of Egypt.

The desert safari surpassed everyone’s expectations as Sayed navigated his truck across the sprawling White Desert landscape, which remarkably changed from one minute to the next. The group toured through black volcanic mountains, towering rock obstruction (agabat), and past lush desert springs.

At one point Kathleen made a challenging comment to Sayed, suggesting he may not have the skills to navigate his truck up one of the monstrous sand dunes that other drivers had seemingly avoided. Sayed did not hesitate to take the bait and a not more than a minute later the truck was barreling along the steep crest of the towering dune. Knuckles whitened, hearts raced and the passengers braced themselves as the truck deftly flew up the dunes, and sharply turned from the steep precipices before racing down the steep sand inclines. It was during one of these precise turns, as the truck was almost sideways against the incline, that things took a “turn” for the worse. The truck lost momentum as gravity one over and the tipping point (literally) was reached. Time slowed to a crawl as the truck and all of its contents rolled laterally to the left down the steep hill.

Brian, in the back seat laid against the door and there was only sand dune outside his window. Kim was on top of him and Paul dangled toward them with a tight grip on the roll bars. Kathleen and Sayed, in the front seat, were equally jumbled. Thankfully no one was injured and people were able to climb out of the top (side) of the truck one at a time.

So the decision as to where we would camp that night was not a hard one to make. We had clearly just arrived there. “There” being about three hours from known civilization, in the middle of the White Desert. Fortunately we were on a well-traveled tourist path so we were able to enlist the help of another guide who assisted us in digging out and then rolling the truck so it was upright. We miraculously had cell reception and Sayed contacted his friend from Baweeti who was on his way to help fix the beat up Landcruiser which was no longer starting.

Very early the next morning Sayed’s truck was working once again and his friend agreed to take the group on the rest of their desert tour through the White Desert. Throughout that day, there were lots of held breaths on even the smallest of sand dunes and there were no more comments challenging the driver’s off-road skills. The group was content to stay on the beaten path and make it back to Baweeti right-side-up.

Deliverance from Hotel Living

After exactly 5 weeks of living at various Marriotts throughout Africa and Asia (work diverted me to Pakistan), I’m finally settling into our apartment in Zamalek. Fortunately (for me) Kathleen arrived at our new abode a couple weeks ahead of me and started tackling some of the less savory tasks such as connecting internet, arranging furniture and picking out curtains. This was very good, for in my world, picking out curtains is indeed slightly more terrifying than traveling through the Taliban-infested areas of northern Pakistan.

One aspect of living in Cairo that has made moving in fairly easy is that anything and absolutely everything can be delivered. As one would expect, furniture and appliance stores have a delivery service, albeit you shouldn’t expect much more than delivery. My work-from-home desk was dropped off the other night by two able-bodied Egyptian delivery men. They stacked the boxed, disassembled pieces of furniture in the corner and explained to me they were "only delivery" and I would have to make an appointment with the store’s “engineer” for assembly. While I can’t imagine anyone with an engineering degree could be satisfied assembling simple desks for a living, he seemed fairly content when he arrived (with his assistant) the next morning to put the pieces of furniture together.

From gigantic superstores down to the smallest corner grocery stores, the stuff of life can be delivered – and as far as I can tell there are no minimum purchase requirements. I might give Abu Hassen Market, from around the corner, a call this afternoon and ask him to run up a pack of gum for me - just to see how it works. There is an Egyptian website called Otlob.com that is a clearing house for restaurant delivery and the options are endless. I ordered a 15£ (less than $3 bucks) shwarma sandwich yesterday for lunch and it only took about 20 minutes before a scooter showed up with my delicious greasy sandwich.

View of Islamic Cairo (not available for delivery)

Working from home with a plethora of delivery options in front of me, I theoretically could never have need to leave the apartment. I could very easily remain sheltered from Cairo for all of my two years here, living off of delivered shwarma and depending on house call engineers to meet all of my furniture assembly needs.

Fortunately, Cairo’s sprawling city streets beckon to be explored and the risk of turning into a delivery-dependent troglodyte is minimal. In fact, I may do some exploring of Islamic Cairo later today, after our curtains are delivered…

Looking through the peep hole toward Zamalek

I'm going to keep things short and simple in this, my first ever, blog entry. The reason for shortness and simplicity is because my time so far in Cairo, Egypt has been just that, short and simple.  It has been 11 days since my wife and I arrived in Egypt and the majority of this time I have spent at the Marriott hotel in the neighborhood of Zamalek.

For those of you unfamiliar with Cairo, Zamalek is one of the nicer neighborhoods in the city. It has a European feel to it with narrow tree lined streets, small cafes and restaurants, and residents from all parts of the world. Although hustling and bustling in its own right, Zamalek is less intense than other inner-city Cairo neighborhoods. In a figurative sense it is an island of calm amidst a sea of chaos. In a more literal sense, it is an actual island in the middle of the Nile. Indeed, it is surround by water on all sides as any literal island should be.

At night, the Marriott hotel is our temporary home -  until we find an affordable apartment that we love (which will be soon enshallah). By day, however, the hotel room is my office. While other hotel guests are out and about during the day for visits to the bazaar and the pyramids, I remain holed up in our small hotel room, working away. For this reason, my time in Cairo, so far, has been simple. It mostly consists of days working at the Marriott, followed by early evening apartment searches in Zamalek, followed by night time at the Marriott. The Marriott is my purgatory, but I am optimistic that this state of limbo will soon come to an end.

After looking at nearly 30 apartments, we are meeting a woman this evening who we hope will be our future land lady. The place is great and price is right - we are keeping  our fingers crossed...