The Roads to Baris & to Assyut If you’ve got time to spare, take the road along the old 40-day camel trail south to Baris. This legendary caravan route extended from western Sudan all the way to the Egyptian Nile Valley. The numerous ancient ruins in the small oases south of Kharga substantiate the claim that Egypt’s current rulers are not the first to take special interest in this remote district.

Vast sandscapes are all that thrive between Kharga and Khwita Temple, 17km to the south. The impressive 10m walls of the temple-c«m-fortress command a hill 2km east of the road. The temple, dedicated to Amon, Mut, and Khonsu, rises above a complex of adobe and sandstone-remnants of a once-flourishing Ptolemaic settlement. (Admission LE8, students LE4. Caretaker should be around from around 8am-6pm.) At the 25km mark you’ll come across shaded Nasser Wells, and, farther on, the better-developed Bulaq Wells, which offers a modern government-run rest house (beds LE4.25) and hot springs that encourage participants to let off steam. Nasser Wells spew forth ferrous water, so the pools are full of precipitated iron oxide, glooping gelatinously to the swimmer. Zayan Temple, a mud and brick structure dedicated to Amon, is 5km east of Nasser Weils near the village of Araf, on a road that loops around from die north of Khwita Temple to a point north of Bulaq.