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By Namit Arora | Mar 2008 | Comments
In Jan 2003, Usha and I traveled through four of the five Oases in Egypt's Western Desert (or Eastern Sahara), including a special excursion to the hauntingly beautiful White Desert, known for its otherworldly white chalk rock formations. In Farafra, we hired a 4x4, camping gear, a driver who doubled as a cook, and drove about 50 km over shifting sands. Usha, with her keen eye for detail, spotted seashells in the sand, a thrilling discovery for us. It is one thing to know that the Sahara was once below the sea, another to see proof of it. Also visible are remains of ancient lava flows—bits of lava rock rolled around for millions of years, eventually turning into lots of black spheroids, inch-wide in diameter. Our "tent" had two right-angled walls (to act as windbreakers) and no roof. We saw a gazillion stars and the white rocks looked beautiful in the moonlight. But even four blankets didn't feel enough when the temperature dropped to near freezing that night. Here are some scenes from the trip, set to some music I like from north Africa.
A funny aside: The book Sahara, describes "four major ethnic groups of the Sahara, including the [Muslim] Tuareg, whose men rather than the women wear veils ... Tuareg women tell the men that 'a child can sleep in the womb for years, or even forever.'"
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