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.