The 5 hour bus took us to Bahyrir for our desert stay. Roger had a bruised arse from the camel ride the day before so had little pleasure in the journey. Our first nights stay was in bamboo huts with straw roofs, peace and quiet was really appreciated compared to the hustle and bustle of downtown Cairo, we had an afternnon tour of the surrounding desert area, the sand was so fine we were more fascinated with this than the pyramids. After seeing a beautiful sunset over Bahyrir it was back to our hut for a huge dinner and to crash out for the night.

Day 2, we were bundled in to our 4x4 land cruiser heading to the black desert, oasis, crystal mountain and the white desert. To get a good view of theblack desert we werer told to walk up what at first look to have been an easy enough hill/mountain, we couldn't have b een more wrong, what a killer but the view was well worth it. To ease our pain and suffering from the heat our next stop was the oasis, bring it on!! Our idealism of an oasis was perhaps a tad high but the enjoyment we all got from the fresh sping water and nice breeze was ultimately what we were after.

The white desert consisted of bright white, mushroom like, chalk formations that the wind had carved away over time these mother nature made sculptures was all we could see for miles. As the sun set our guide made camp for the night which consised of pillows on the sandy floor, a table, cloth screen to give us a bit of privacy and fire to cook the dinner. That night we slept under the stars in pure silence....... Well it would've been untill Steve started snoring. A beautiful, peaceful environment to sleep and all can be heard is Steve's bellowing nasal orchestra! Steve slept well Roger an I don't agree.....

Morning came and we had a full on day of travelling ahead: 3 hrs 4x4 back to camp, Roger was allowed to take the wheel and drove us out of the desert, did a great job too considering the tracks kept disappearing over the chalk and all he had was our Egyptian guide pointing in the right direction, then 5 hours bus to Cairo, 14 hrs train down top Aswan, that's hell of alot to do with only a 2hrr break in between. All went well except we did find ourselves on the slowest train possible, it had about 20 carriage and kept over heating this led to us being late into Aswan by 3hrs!!!!!! 17hrs on a train aswell as everything else, to say we were tired, smelly and hungry would be an understatement and to top it off we found out we needed to be up at 2.30am to get the 3hr bus to Abu Simbel.

Abu Simbel was pretty impressive but we had hardly anytime to see it properly and in all honesty the tiredness took all our enthusiasm, shame, but i can see why people flock here day after day. Once back in Aswan we took ourselves up to the rooftop pool (or puddle) where we met a wicked irish guy Donnacha and his mate Marco, who were driving to Kenya from Ireland, Donnacha is setting up a backpackers in Mombasa, so you guess where we're planning on going in the future???????

Next on the itinerary was a 2 day Fellucca up the Nile incase anyone is unsure of what a fellucca is, it's basically a huge bed with sails, that's it! So of course it's the perfect time for us all to have the s*&ts, nothing major but knowing all you have is bush when you need to go and that's only when you're docked up to the banks is a bit, um, stomach churning, that said we had a very relaxing 2 days and nights and even had a full on bath (with suds) in the Nile. Sometimes it's hard to believe this is the same river that we saw in Cairo, deep brown and infested with litter and God knows what lurks beneath.

On our way to Luxor next for a few more ruins....... xxx