We returned to Cairo, followed our GPS co-oridnates and eventually found that the road to the Western Desert was the 6th October road which we had been told many times only led to 6th October City. After by-passing 6th October City the road eventually just turned into the desert highway and fully tarmaced two lane highway straight out into desert which had taken us 24 hours to find.!!

Through the desert the temperature was a steady 34 degrees and the road was straight and long. We took turns to drive and passed through many police road blocks as they consider this desert highway road tobe very dangerous. At each road block you are asked the same questions by about 5people, what nationality, how many people, where are you going? Our first stop was Bahariyya Oasis some 365k from Cairo. and camped at Ahmed's Safari Camp where we had a room available to us for showering and electricity for the camper. When we left we needed fuel but on going to the petrol station we found they had no diesel!! We had a decision to make did we wait until 1.p.m (Egyptian time..might mean 5 p.m.) or go and hope we had enough fuel to get to the next Oasis about 200k away. We decided to go and hope they had diesel or we would really be in trouble.

We travelled through the Black Desert to Al-Farafra Oasis where the only station did have diesel and we filled up both tanks. From here on it was considered the most dangerous part of the route and we had to sign a document to say that we refused the armed police escort. We never actually found out what the danger was supposed to be because there are that many police checkpoints , about every 50k, we didn't see how any bandits could got in there unless they came across the desert from Libya.

The black desert, called this because the sand is covered with small black volcanic stones, turned to the white desert which was a region of blindingly white rock frmations worn by the elements into strange shapes. Apparently the area is full of quartz crystals but we never stopped to search for them. Another bedouin campsite at Mut and the final 500k out of the desert to Luxor.

It had been a hard, tiring 3 days driving and we took it in turns as it easily gave you a headache just looking at the road in front checking for potholes. There were sand drifts crossing the road and every so often a train line crossed the road which you didn't really see until you were on top of it and we had to really slow down to cross them.

We came out of the desert, looking for Luxor but now all road signs are in Arabic which made it very difficult. We ended up passing through a tiny village along the side of the canal where a mini bus/taxi pulled over and asked if we were looking for Luxor. He told us to follow him which was easier said than done as he was going at break neck speed through the villages, splashing through mud, and just avoiding stray kids, donkeys and goats, other vehicles and pedestrians. We only managed to keep up when he stopped to take on more passengers or to go over the speed humps in the road. Luckily he led us right into the centre of Luxor which seemed a haven of peace and quite after Cairo. We easily found the camp site and drove in through the big blue gates.