Camping in the vast emptiness of the White Desert, Egypt
Of all the amazing places on earth, from awe-inspiring to beautiful, nothing calls to me like the desert winds. As if rebelling against the conventions of society, the vast, empty expanse of sandy dunes paints for me an unscripted life, full of budding potential and freedom. With its dry winds and lonely moans, I feel it caressing my soul, beckoning me into a deep unknown.
On one of our many restless moments—so many that we’ve lost count—Mick and I decided to go camping. Up until that point, we had camped in almost every place imaginable, all except for the desert. Reading about the exploits of Alexander the Great during childhood, I had always fantasised about visiting the Siwa oasis; the place where he was prophesied to conquer the entire known world. It roused in me the concept of unlimited possibilities—the idea that we could manifest anything we set our imagination to. From Memphis, Alexander trekked across the scorching heat and the shivering nighttime coldness of the Egyptian desert sands, to the edge of civilisation as they knew it then; the Siwa Oasis.
So it was that we decided to take the same route, except there was one major difference; instead of an entire Macedonian army, we hired a Captain from the Egyptian Ground Forces and a lone Bedouin tribesman. They worked as a team—one to bypass military checkpoints and the other to guide us across the barren landscape.
It took an entire day from dusk to dawn just to travel halfway across the desert on a 4WD. Most of that time was spent stopping at military guard posts where our guides smoked shisha pipes with checkpoint guards and played a game or two of cards. Perhaps it is a ritual of the desert culture—where every single bit of stimulation brings much needed energy to their dull lives or because it is a place where it is as inspiring as it is boring—we never questioned it and simply went along. During those waiting moments, I would stare into the horizon, getting lost in the quiet stillness, deep in thought. Sometimes when the winds picked up, the sand would pelt unrelentingly like sandpaper on our skins. The niqab—a Bedouin head scarf—is a lifesaver during these times. Mick and I hardly spoke a word, both of us instinctively aware of the quiet contemplativeness of the moment.
Finally after an entire day of driving on shifting sands, we found a nice spot to camp. Sunset in the desert is nothing short of inspiring. It’s the quiet kind of inspiration that is as sure and as certain as the sun that treks its lonely path to sleep every night. This confident transition from daylight to darkness is accompanied by a drastic drop in temperature, almost like a chastising reminder of the harsh realities of desert life. Nights in the deserts are freezing cold, sometimes dropping below zero. This harshness can take one by surprise, as it did us, but it can also reveal its truths to those who would see and hear.
No sooner had the sun set, did an entire blanket of stars revealed itself in the night sky, slowly and unhurried at first, then gradually building up in urgent passion. A kaleidoscope of sparkling lights burst across the horizon. Shooting stars were going off every few minutes like desert pyrotechnics, set to regale any who made it this far inland. The plunging temperature was accompanied by howling gales of desert winds, lamenting across the dark emptiness, its cry so lonely that the word aching can barely describe it. The pitch blackness accentuated the piercing loneliness brought on by a euphoric bliss. Such was our measured reward.
We set up our cooking fire in the dark, using just our ears to guide our movements. Protected by Bedouin wind-breaking curtains angled against the 4WD, we laid on the ground watching the stars dance across the horizon. After a slow evening and a full belly, the last thing I remembered seeing was a single shooting star that streamed across the corner of my vision as I drifted off to sleep on my mat.
If this entry sounds slow and uneventful, it is because it is exactly that, physically that is. The emptiness beckons us to turn away from our usual outwards focus, to the inner space where our imagination lies. The blank canvas of the desert represents the new uncharted paths of our unlimitless inner potential, a drawing board of future possibilities. It is the dawn and the dark, the scorching heat and the freezing cold, the beginning and the ending. It holds no space for any form of self importance or arrogance, whipping any jagged outcroppings into quiet humility. It is the total and complete surrender of oneself. How does one even think he can fight the desert?
I wondered how many people have trekked the Egyptian desert before me in search of truth. Indeed, to camp out in the vastness of the open desert is to realise one’s insignificance and yet, there is wonder at the same time, of how far civilisation has come, of how far we have come. We are all part of the cosmos, big or small. Once upon a time, we came from the stars but in the end we all return to stardust.
In my dreams, I wondered if that was perhaps the Oracle’s, no, the desert’s real message to Alexander too.