Bahariya Oasis

Compared to the epic twelve hour bus ride to Siwa, the four hour drive by private mini-bus to Bahariya Oasis was very manageable. The only possible complaint was that our bus had been equipped with a warning alarm that emitted a loud, obnoxious beep at any speed over 120 kmph, so of course the driver did his best to maintain a constant speed of 123 kmph; fast enough to fill the bus with relentless noise for the duration of the trip, but not fast enough to shorten it by much.

After a quick lunch, we met our guides. Waleed wore a form-fitting, wide-collared shirt tucked into a pair of tight indigo jeans which were elaborately embroidered and embedded with sparkling rhinestones. Except for his moustache and mullet, he could have been Italian. Our driver, Mohammed, with his ratty jeans, t-shirt and flip-flops, had nothing at all in common with the Italians except for a near constant leer, which he usually directed at Ms. Chadha.

We began our tour with a visit to the Bahariya Antiquities and Archaeological Center, a crumbling cinderblock building which had the look and feel of an abandoned hospital. That the place was full of mummies (including those of children who are the worst kind of mummy) didn't improve the creepy atmosphere much.

We were informed that the Golden Mummies of Bahariya had been discovered in exactly the same way as the catacombs of Kom es-Shoqafa; by a donkey falling into a hole. I've heard this sort of "lucky archaeologist/unlucky donkey" story enough times now that I've started to doubt whether all of them could possibly be true. Whether the initial discover was an unfortunate donkey or not, the archaeologists have been quite pleased with the outcome. Subsequent exploration has revealed the largest cache of mummies ever discovered - as many as 10,000 spread over a necropolis covering ten square kilometers.

I started to grow increasingly suspicious of the information Waleed provided about them as it became more and more improbably specific. It didn't help that he had the curious habit of adding "or something like that" to the end of half of his sentences. This made even his accurate information sound completely invented. He directed our attention to a decaying mummy, which he told us was once a doctor, probably a surgeon, and that a nearby mummy was his friend and had probably helped him with the surgeries. This seemed to be more than anyone else in the world knew about these things and we began to suspect that Waleed was just playing a macabre form of house - as if these corpses were no more than life-sized, elaborately decorated dolls.

Our next stop was a visit to the tombs of Zad-Amun ef-Ankh and his son Bannentiu. Both tombs require a ten-meter descent down steep staircases before ducking through low portals into the main halls. The murals in each were painted in vivid yellow and blues that looked as bright as they must have been 2,500 years ago. Neither tomb was nearly so colorful, however, as Waleed's interpretation of the events depicted on them. In one scene showing the falcon-headed god Horus standing near the ibis-headed Thoth, Waleed explained his theory that they were probably the same god: "some people say they are different, but I think maybe they are the same style guy." This was almost exactly the same way he described his view of the differences between Japanese and Chinese tourists, which he shared with us the following day when we met a group of people who I think were most-likely Korean.

One scene depicted Bannentiu (Waleed pronounced this as "Bennington," which I will use also) flanked by rows of baboons and frogs. Waleed told us that this was to show that he is happy in the afterlife, "because baboons live in trees and eat bananas and that is nice. Frogs sing like making music by the water and this is nice too. We see that Bennington is happy to be dead and not go to the fire, or something like this."

By the time we visited the Temple of Alexander, about 3km further down the road. Waleed had given up any pretense of trying to provide useful information. The temple's primary hall was lined with a procession of gods which Waleed recklessly tried to name. He made it through Anubis, Horus and Osiris, but then things begn to get a little foggy: "Isis, Amun Ra, Seti, Meti, Teti, Feti, Beti..." he was just rhyming the same word and still had half the wall yet to get through. The old Bedouin caretaker wasn't having any of it and cut him off. The caretaker than started over from the beginning, announcing every god clearly with a throaty growl which is exactly how I want my voice to develop over the next thirty years.

Whenever we'd return to the landcruiser after one of these visits, we'd find Mohammed relaxing to Arabic music on the radio. He would quickly turn it off as soon as he saw us, but having grown tired of the interruptions, Mohammed asked us if we wouldn't mind listening to something. We didn't mind at all, but Waleed whispered to him in Arabic to please make sure that it was English music, so we sped along the dirt road absolutely blasting a Toni Braxton album.

Soon we came ten-meter cliff which Mohammed pretended to want to drive over. Growing up in Utah, I've been on a lot of jeep trails over the years, but never, ever, anything so steep as this. I thought he was only teasing Ms. Chadha (the desire to tease Ms. C seems to be the only cultural constant in this world) but soon, with "Unbreak My Heart" blaring in the background, he slipped over the edge and brought the landcruiser to about an 80 degree angle to the canyon floor below. Everything loose in the truck was resting on the inside of the windshield before we finally leveled off and drove up the sandy bank of the opposite side. I was worried that Ms. C. wasn't going to take this stunt well, but after she caught her breath following a long bout of manic laughter, she managed to indicate that she had enjoyed it very much.

We ended the tour by driving through a narrow, winding canyon to the top of Jebel Ingleezi (English Mountain). The valley where we parked looked almost lunar - I didn't see a single living plant growing out of the black basalt on the short walk to the top. The view from the summit of the Oasis and the surrounding valley, however, was very good, which led the English to build several stone shelters here during one of the world wars (Waleed wasn't sure which and appeared surprised to learn that there had been as many as two). He told us only that "the English were very scared that the people come to find them and so... English Mountain!" After this explanation, he told us he was very hungry and asked us if we could get back to the landcruiser by ourselves. We told him we could and he set off for something to eat, leaving us to take photos and enjoy the view. Poor Waleed, I got the impression that he'd had a rough day, even though I don't think we could have been the most difficult clients. We didn't trust anything he was telling us, so we almost never asked him to expand on anything. I suppose in some ways, that might be more difficult for a guide.

Back at the bottom of the mountain, a few other groups had arrived and their guides had gathered around our jeep to share a pot of tea. They invited us for a cup from the second pot. The first pot tends to be stronger and more bitter, while the weakness of the second cup is compensated for by piling in the sugar and mint. I prefer the second cup - it reminds me of the sugary mint tea I got hooked on in Morocco.

Back at the hotel, Waleed informed us that he would also be our guide through the White Desert and that he would give us a wake-up call at 9:00 the next morning. We went to bed confident that the next morning we could rely on our guide to safely lead us through one of the world's great deserts while also providing useful and accurate information, or something like that.