The Roads from Cairo & to Farafra

As you leave metropolitan Cairo you’ll pass just north of the Pyramids of Giza. Beyond lies October 6th City, one of Egypt’s new planned cities whose name and purpose might have easily been lifted from an anti-utopian novel, designed to accommodate a share of the country’s burgeoning population. On the approach to Bahariya, the entire landscape slurches into a deep shade of red. Vast deposits of iron here are quarried by a huge iron mine just off the highway 40km before Bawiti.

Heading southwest toward Farafra you leave the fertility of Bawiti behind. Look for the tiny oasis of Al-Heiz, 40km to the southwest. The modern settlement (5km east of the main road on a gravel track) is a puny remnant of the sizable, prosperous community that flourished in early Christian times. About 2km down the gravel track from the main road lie sundry and substantial remains of an early church and military camp. (LE5O per truckload as a daytrip from Bawiti.)

The paved road from Bawiti to Farafra oasis (180km) features spectacular canyons, wind-blown mesas, rugged desertscape, and the roughest, dustiest, and most pock-marked surface of any route graced with the title “road.” The precipitous eastern and western escarpments of the Bahariyan depression meet at a point about 60km south of Bawiti. The road winds through this pass and onto a brief plateau, then plummets into the Farafra depression. Soon you’ll enter the fantastic White Desert, where the wind has shaped mountains of chalk into giant white mush rooms, sphinxes, and riddling Rorschach-like psychedelia. Most hotel managers arrange camping trips to the White Desert leaving in the afternoon from Bahariya and continuing to Farafra after an evening amid sandy absurdity. (LE25O-30O per truckload, including bed and transportation in jeeps. These trips are also offered less expensively from Farafra-)