Hugo, Rachel and Carolyn of the Desert

We spent a casual afternoon quad-riding in the Sahara Desert. It was just the usual, basic stuff you do out there – you know, wearing face-covering scarves under our helmets, finding wolf tracks and fossils, climbing a rocky hill to look in the directions of Libya, Algeria, Morroco, Sudan and Egypt, trying to see through clouds of sand and dust while driving fast enough over rocks, dips and bumps that various internal organs got to know each other like never before. It was FREAKIN’ AWESOME !

It was so exciting in so many ways.I knew we were in for some thrills when the sticker on the quad said DANGER Use by drivers under 16 will increase likelihood of serious injury and death!

I found the desert exhilerating. An expected wave of happiness and freedom swept me up and covered me in yellow dust. It was so bare, so beautiful and so BIG. The quad bikes were tons of fun – they slid through loose sand and over gravel. I was at the back, so I had to make it through everyone’s dust – at times I couldn’t see a thing except Hugo’s helmet vaguely in front of me.

We passed lots of dogs, some camels, donkeys of course, and some old mud brick structures. Nothing grows out there. Nothing. No cactus. No palm trees. Nothing. Foxes, wolves, bugs and scorpions manage to live off each other. There are no oases for hundreds of miles. Just sand and rocks. It was incredible. Egypt is full of great contrasts.

We rode about 16 km into the desert in the late afternoon. Afterwards, one of the guides used a compressor to blast the dust off us as much as possible.

What a way to leave Upper Egypt. It was a highlight of our trip – amazing.

We are about to get on a train to go back up to Cairo. I’ve got a great book to read – Gone – a YA dystopian. It’s really intriguing. I finished the latest Alexander McCall Smith Precious Ramotswe book a couple of nights ago. It was so fun to read on the same continent as Botswana. Brilliant series if you haven’t read them. Interestingly, I’ve tested my iphone down here in Luxor. Lizzie called me this morning, no problems, but I can’t get internet. My Kindle had no problems getting me online to buy a couple more books to keep me going ! I finished The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake last night – interesting.

Cairo museum tomorrow !