March Mirages
Posted March 18, 2007[Like last time, some of the pictures can be clicked on for high-res versions.]
Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day. The Ides of March two days before that. The last week has seen four friends' birthdays. Midterms are approaching with astonishing speed, and ten days from now I'll be on a plane headed to Thailand. And, oh, God, can there really be only two months left in my program? Yesterday it seemed an age. Today it seems like tomorrow.
Last Monday was Max Wallach's birthday, the sixteenth was a double shot with Colin's and Lesley's birthdays, and today is Kate's birthday. Friday morning, fourteen of us piled into a minibus and drove into the desert, back to the same place I wrote about last time, to celebrate in those impressive vistas. Here's our group:
Left to right: Matt hugs Kira, Eric Eggleston, Colin, Sara, Laura, Max Wallach, Lesley, Kate, Ian, Madelyn, Danielle, John, and me.
The ride out to the Baharia Oasis, where our jeeps waited to take us into the desert, lasted a grueling four hours. Our legs, knees, and butts were numb long before that, and by the time we arrived our stomachs, out of hunger, had joined our lower bodies in choruses of "Why are you doing this to us?" At the Western Desert Hotel, we stood and stretched and ate lunch with gusto.
John (in the red hat) could not get enough molasses.
After lunch, it was go time. The fourteen of us loaded into two jeeps along with three guides, including Mahmoud, the brother of Samir, who took me out on my previous visit. We struck out into the desert, visiting many of the same places I saw last time, including the sand dunes, the volcanic cones, crystal mountain, and the desert flowers. Night was almost entirely upon us when we reached our campsite in the White Desert.
The sun sets over the hills of the White Desert.
The desert was dark and cold. We had no moon. Well, that's not exactly true, but the moon was a tiny sliver that didn't show up until we had all fallen asleep (around three in the morning, I'd guess), and it didn't hang out for long. We took walks in the darkness while the guides prepared camp and a chicken dinner. The wind blew the chilly desert air, and the stars attacked the darkness. With each passing minute, more appeared, and more, and more still, until our brains asked us how there could possibly be so many. The Milky Way branded the heavens, and for a brief moment, looking at it edge on, we actually felt sideways on this small, blue planet, as though the biggest obstacle to communication we might face encountering an alien species is orientation. Even shaking off that feeling left me thinking of Olbers' Paradox, because every time I looked at the stars, more appeared. Looking into space, into time, is seeing the end of the universe.
We gathered at camp for dinner, then drank tea around the campfire. Again, our guides sang and danced, and Sara cut a rug - uh, sand - with one of them. I played a few tunes on my guitar, and Kate sang to one of them, wowing us all with her voice. Lesley had made Rice Krispies Treats the night before, and people ate those and roasted marshmallows. Above our heads, satellites and meteors blazed across the sky. We fell asleep under the rotating canopy of space.
Before sleeping, I wandered into the sands to get some pictures of the sky. I wish my camera could do more, but I was pleased to get these shots anyway:
In shooting Orion's lower body, I got lucky enough to catch a small meteor, in the top left.
That's Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, in the constellation Canis Major.
This fuzzy group is the Pleiades, often called the Seven Sisters and my favorite constellation. Unfortunately, my camera isn't capable of a better shot of them, so try this link.
The next morning, the sun's rays prodded us out of our rapidly-overheating sleeping bags. We ate breakfast and packed up, got in the vehicles and began the trek back to Baharia, with stops at several unusual rock formations and a Bedouin farm, where warm water pumped from deep in the earth formed a pool. It didn't take long before several of us had jumped in for a swim in the warm water, including one of our guides. Before too long, it was time to reboard the jeeps and return to the Oasis, but not without a brief stop to fix a flat tire we picked up on the highway. The spare tire, by the way, came from some generous vehicle that just happened to encounter our broken jeep. I'm just glad that tire didn't blow out while offroad.
We never did figure out how the sand got in Eric's shoes...
Those cats was fast as lightning.
You know what's a great word? Hoodoo. Go on, say it. Hoodoo. Hoodoo.
Sara on a rock that looks eerily like a giant peep.
John climbing the only acacia tree for quite a ways, according to the local Bedouins.
Appropriately, my t-shirt has a gorilla on it.
Taken in front of the Mushroom. Click for a slightly different version.
Colin, Laura, Max Wallach, Kira, and Matt enjoy the warm groundwater.
Happy birthday weekend, buddy.
Another cramped minibus ride later, we were back in Cairo, sore-bottomed and inhaling the pollution we had not missed at all while in the desert. Spring break is only two weeks away, and we await it with baited breath. Partially because of the air quality.
I did not see Ahmed again.
