These are the best months to see the Western Desert. Jenny Jobbins gets close to the wildlife on a winter night Wherever you look, the Western Desert is filled with romance. Whether you have a vision of prehistoric herdsmen chasing giraffe through the savanna, or a caravan bringing gold and spices from Africa, or Count Almasy searching for Zerzura or the Desert Rats swarming amongst the dunes in World War II, the ghosts and memories fill this seemingly empty expanse. But the oases, the desert's rich, green pockets, have been filled with life and people from time immemorial and there is plenty to show for their millennia of habitation. Since recreational travel should be uplifting rather than enervating, winter is the time to visit the oases. The nights might be cold but the days, though short, are warm and sunny. The short days also mean that one's energy generally lasts until that early bedtime. Yet each day needs careful planning. If you plan to sleep in the desert then the camp needs to be set up before it gets dark. In December and January, that means finding somewhere to settle down for the night at 4pm. After that there's not much to do but eat and sleep. The upside, of course, is that you could be up and raring to go at 6am. You need time to visit each Western Desert site, and so it's no wonder that people keep returning. If you paused to see every site of interest on and off the road between Dakhla and Kharga alone, the 175-kilometre journey from one oasis to the other might take several days. Fortunately our list of destinations was short, and since the three sites we were aiming for were on the main road we could easily see them all in a day -- and we could even have managed without a four-wheel-drive vehicle with no trouble at all. Each of our three sites bore traces of a continual human thread running from the distant past up to the present. Our first stop was at the rock inscriptions which lie on the south side of the road 135kms from Kharga, not far from Tineida. This spot was once a major crossroads: it was where the caravan trail coming up from Sudan met the track running down from Assiut in the Nile Valley, crossing the trail leading east to Kharga and west to Dakhla. It was a natural place to leave a mark, which is both a bonus for us since some of the carvings are prehistoric, yet a nuisance because modern-day vandals are still compelled to add carvings -- even if they obliterate the traces left by ancient vandals. The best of the inscribed rocks is close to the road. Carvings smother its rich ochre north face: there are giraffes, camels and mounted horsemen. Some of the older ones may have been preserved under a layer of sand and only recently exposed, since there appears to be no other way to explain how the inscriptions could have survived in such soft sandstone. Many questions have been raised as to the age of some of the carvings, but archaeologists have clear evidence that some predate the Pharaonic era. The modern signatures present a horrendous defacement and it is hard to believe that people could be so mindless. Dakhla has been inhabited for many thousands of years, ever since it was a grassy savanna where people of the area could graze their cattle and hunt. From at least Old Kingdom times (2663-2195 BC) it had links to the Nile Valley. All in all there have been rich pickings for the members of the Dakhla Oasis Project -- a Canadian-led team with additional grants from Holland, Australia and the United Kingdom, among others -- who have been excavating here for more than 20 years and until this season were stationed in the village of Bishindi (they have now moved to a new house in another part of the oasis). Bishindi was our next stop. It lies north off the main road and could easily be missed without directions. We left the car on the outskirts of the village and walked through the sandy, unpaved streets followed by a crowd of curious children. The locals have a far-fetched notion of the origin of the name of their village. They say it was named after an Indian prince ("Pasha Hindi") who settled there and is the ancestor of most of the villagers. This is, though romantic, utter nonsense: the name, like much else in the village, is Pharaonic. Even the houses are said to be Pharaonic in style -- one might surmise there was no need to change or improve the design -- and many are built over tombs dating from the Roman era. We were taken to "Pasha Hindi's" tomb, which lay under a ceremonial green cloth on one side of an ancient tomb chamber the lower three metres of which are Roman but are topped by an Islamic dome: the effect of the Islamic vault sitting on top of the Roman ones is one of startling disharmony. Nearby is the tomb of Kitines, which contains six small rooms decorated in relief with Romanised, ancient Egyptian figures representing deities in traditional poses but less stylised than their Pharaonic antecedents. Outside were several small Roman sarcophagi, and we noticed that at least one bore chip marks similar to others we had seen in the area, notably at Umm Dabadib which lies a little further north on the Darb Al- Arbain (40 days' road). Women were pressing us to buy souvenirs from the baskets they carried on their shoulders, but none of us, sadly, was gracious enough to be tempted by the tawdry jewellery or modern coins. A little girl of about eight carefully wrote her name, in English, in my notebook: Taghreed, an unusual and pretty name which means the singing of birds. Suddenly all the children decided spontaneously to pose for a photo: there were at least two dozen of them, some very small indeed, and they lined themselves very professionally in layers to make a very photogenic group. But just as our two photographers had set up their cameras and won a collective, engaging smile a thin, tight- lipped mother wearing crimson velvet swept in and hauled her toddler up by the arm. She shouted at the other children and they quickly scattered, bringing a swift end to our photo opportunity. We learned that Bishindi boasts a hot spring of 37 degrees and a carpet-making project and a training centre to teach embroidery. The roads were being dug up so sewerage could be installed. But the most impressive thing about Bishindi was the children: they were lovely. Like the Pied Piper we attracted more and more as we strolled round. Several of them asked if we could help them practise their English, several asked for pens, but not one of them came out with the dreaded "B" word. Our heads were swimming as we tried to memorise their names, and it was really sad to say goodbye. Our third and last stop was Balat, once a busy fortified town, now more of an abandoned rabbit warren. The old town is built on a mound, which Dakhla Oasis Project leader Tony Mills says was probably a spring mound -- one formed naturally by layers of vegetation growing over a spring. Some parts of the streets are still roofed with a frame of rickety branches and are too low and narrow to admit the mounted invaders who once menaced the desert. We wandered from house to house. The walls were mud brick, stuccoed over with pink or ochre plaster. Each house was neatly marked with the number and name of the owner. There appeared to be no electricity or water supply. We entered some of the houses and climbed the stairs which, like the roofs, were made of wattle and daub. The houses had two or three floors. Up on the roofs were bread ovens and built-in storage jars as well as a good view of the town, which seemed to go on and on. The streets and houses were deserted, but the shreds of garbage left behind appeared fairly fresh. Where had the residents gone? To newer houses, we were told by one of the few people we met. This man had come to visit relatives who still chose to live here, but they were not at home and he was waiting for their return. Their house was trimmed with carefully tended potted plants and even a tiny garden planted with hibiscus, mint and flowers. The townspeople were hoping for compensation for their houses, the man said. Then the state could turn the town into a museum. If anyone is to save this town they will have to act quickly, since weathering will soon take care of the fragile structure. Through one open doorway we could see a corn mill with all its workings in place. A hoopoe was sitting on the grinding stones. A camel saddle was propped outside another door, along with baskets and pots. The ground appeared to be very fertile and grass was growing on the edges of some of the open streets and in the animal pens. We saw no one else until we turned a corner and bumped into someone we knew, the photographer Carry Zaghow with her husband and some friends. What a small place the Western Desert had turned out to be! Carry's group was heading for Kharga, so we left them in Balat and continued east to Dakhla. After Balat the road is fringed with casuarinas and eucalyptus trees, and before long one approaches the dense greenness of the oasis. We stopped in Mut, one of the two larger towns (the other being Qasr Dakhla), to eat fateer (pancakes) dripping with honey and powdered sugar for 50 piastres each. Shortly before Qasr Dakhla we turned off the road and wound between the conical domed tombs of the Islamic cemetery towards the Darb Al-Farafra, the difficult route over rocky terrain to the next oasis. Here, in the stony wadi (dry water course) at the start of the trail, we made camp. It was already after sunset, but the moon had risen and would remain bright most of the night. The fateer had filled us up, so we did without a cooked supper and slept early beside the vehicle in the centre of the wadi, which was now awash with moonlight. Just as we were unrolling our sleeping bags (we were travelling without tents) we saw a small shadow dart between some rocks. It appeared again, and stayed long enough for us to notice its exceedingly large ears. It was a fennec fox, and clearly not much more than a cub. We put down some bread, which it took. By the time it came back for more we had unpacked the remains of last night's chicken and placed it on a rock. It ate, not much put out by our presence, and then carried off the leftovers and buried them. Soon it was back, perhaps, this time, out of curiosity, or perhaps searching out more food for its cache. I could hear it scuffling about as I parked my sleeping bag next to the luggage pile, which gave a little protection from the emerging wind. I had taken out my contact lenses so the view was rather dim, but after a few minutes I saw a pair of ears over the top of a bag only inches from my nose. I was really sorry I had removed my lenses, but with all the wind and sand about I daren't put them in again. Instead I wrapped the hood of my sleeping bag round my ears in case our little visitor chose to nibble them, and tried to sleep. Almost immediately the little fox was trampling me underfoot as it ran over my sleeping bag. Sightless, sand-swept and startled I jumped up and decided this was enough: I was moving to the back seat of the vehicle. At once I was ashamed of being a wimp. David Attenborough would never have taken refuge in a car -- and would surely still be wearing his contact lenses. By morning, though, my feelings of regret were surpassed by guilt. There had been quite a sandstorm and my companions were half buried: only I had slept though the wind, warm as toast. But none of them had been so intimately approached by our visitor, so all round I was the lucky one. And next time I come to the desert I won't forget to carry a bag of dog biscuits -- and spare lenses. Practical information There is too much to see in Dakhla and Kharga for a single whistle-stop tour. The best way to take advantage of a trip if you only have a few days is to fly to the New Valley and hire a car and driver locally (see Getting about).
