19 - 25 April 2001
Issue No.530
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 19 - 25 April 2001 Issue No.530 |
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White desert dream
Bahariya was not enough for photographer Khaled El-Fiqi. He joined German tourists on a unique pilgrimage
The journey from Bahariya to the White Desert is an experience apart. To the average city dweller, desert, hills and dunes present an ineffable mystery. Waking up to the guide's summons at the crack of dawn, packing up food, drink and camera, one feels embarked on a mythical voyage of discovery. Occasionally, one comes across a lone, rugged landmark, but it is majestic nature that captures the imagination most forcibly.
"Traveller in an antique land"
As we trekked further and deeper, our Bedouin guide, Saleh, seemed perfectly familiar with the surroundings. Twenty kilometres into the desert, black rock formations, like imaginary mountains, began to emerge on the horizon, interspersed with sand dunes that flashed in and out of vision as we proceeded. At one point the vehicle stalled, everyone got out to push. It was amusing to see the tourists, utterly exhausted, laboriously heaving for half an hour or longer, terrified of being stranded.
The peculiar sense of solitude that the desert inspires is papably frightening, incomparable. After a brief rest, Saleh declared that we would soon reach the White Desert highway, and the journey was resumed. Forty-five kilometres away from Bahariya, on the highway, Al-Heiz Church -- a Coptic building dating to early Roman times -- stood deserted: it had collapsed three days after it was restored due to faulty construction work. Another brief rest prepared us for the Crystal Mountain, a fascinating encounter. Tourists scrambled around, picking up magnificent pieces of glass -- nature's spellbinding art. The "Germans' Mecca" as the White Desert is known was only steps away from us now.
At the edge of the White Desert -- the milky-white formations have been described often enough -- six four-wheel drives or more were parked idly about, testimony to the fact that tourists had spent the night there. Saleh took us to what he referred to as the new White Desert, a vast expanse of seldom trekked land, where the Germans made out shapes in the bulging landscape: a sphinx, a hawk, a humming bird.
The desert lunch Saleh prepared for us was the perfect denouement to an astounding trip. By the end I could fully understand my German companions: the trek through the white desert is indeed a pilgrimage. One can only hope that more and more Egyptians will realise it.
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