After firing Fathy, we hired what the Lonely Planet guidebook called one of the best guides of the Sahara, Badry. They were right.
Apparently Toyota made some special Land Cruisers especially for desert military use. This is one of them, it was considerably more effective in the desert than the Land Rover!
Just south of the Baharriya Oasis is the Black Desert, so named because of all the little black rocks that top the sand and hills.
South of the Black Desert and just north of the Farafra Oasis is the White Desert, named after the amazing windswept chalky rock protrusions that dot the surreal landscape.
We camped out in the White Desert and walked around for a couple of hours in the morning to explore
Badry is a late riser and still sleeping
Pascal irrigates the White Desert's last surviving bush
Bedouin tea is good, but it's strong stuff!
Badry, the Saharan super-guide
Coming down can be a lot more tricky than going up
Jump!
Does that look like a rabbit to you?
Chicken?
Badry took us out to sand dunes so brightly golden in all directions that we couldn't even tell where one dune began and another ended. It was just gold as far as the eye could see, and then the blue of the horizon and the sun. We lost all sense of depth perception.
