My Desert Safari

A Breif Summary:
During my brief hiatus from Cairo, I went on a number of interesting adventures. For those of you who are too busy to read my beautifully detailed stories below, allow me to give you a quick summary of what happened. We drove out to an oasis in the Sahara desert, stayed there for a night, took jeeps out to the middle of the White Desert where we camped for a night with our two Bedouin guides, returned to the oasis the following day, and returned to Cairo on the fourth day. The trip included such things as: a slight concussion due to a ping pong accident, a song about Nescafe sung by the Bedouin men, getting a 4x4 vehicle stuck in the desert, and Communist showers (not to be confused with communal showers). If any of these topics peak your interest, then read through The Detailed Adventures of Monson in the Sahara. Please note: These adventures may not be posted in their entirety for a few days because the concussion I am suffering causes me to get severe headaches from using the computer for elongated periods of time. Yes, it was ME that suffered the Great Ping Pong Injury of 2005. Laugh it up and pray I will swiftly recover from it (I am wearing sunglasses while writing this post because my head is so sensitive right now).


The Detailed Adventures of Monson in the Sahara - Day 1
I woke up at 8am and hopped into the shower. This would be the latest I would get to sleep in for the next three days. This was also the last decent shower I would enjoy for the rest of the week. After packing the car plum full of luggage we (my host family, and another Dutch family) set off towards the Western portion of the Sahara desert. Our destination for the day was a hotel/hostel type establishment known as the Ahmed Safari Camp. It is located in the Bahariya desert oasis which is about 350km Southwest of Cairo.

Many stops were made along the way to ensure that the adults had enough coffee in them. During one of these stops I took the time to take inventory of the burping talent we had present. I had each of the three innocent little Dutch girls burping for me, along with the odd burp from my host father as well. All in all we had an impressive array of burpers present on this trip. On a side note, Holly the cat is sitting on my lap right now, and she is dropping some nasty farts. Sick little kitty. Have I mentioned how much her personality parallels that of my sister Holly? Heh heh.

After what felt like a full day of driving (and asking a lot of locals where the Ahmed Safari Camp was), we finally pulled into the ‘camp’. Once we were settled in our rooms we headed off on a short hike towards a desert hill that Rob and I spied in the distance. Us younger people (eg, not the parents) arrived at the top of the rock hill in time to see the firey orange sun dissolve into the distant desert landscape. The scenery reminded me of the Lion King when Simba gets held up by Rafiki for all the animals of the jungle to see. I thought of doing the same thing with Justina, the youngest Dutch girl, but I don’t think she shared the same enthusiasm for the idea as me.

Later on that evening we ate some dinner, played some ping pong, and did some star gazing (we were trying to find the moon because Ramadan isn’t officially over until the new moon appears). One interesting thing I noticed was how much smaller the so called ‘Big Dipper’ is when viewed from here. It looked more like a baby spoon to me. Either way, it was nice to finally be in a place where I could look up and see the stars again.

Day 2 coming soon...
Click here for pictures!