Travel: Dakhleh's Desert Lodge Hotel

Egypt Today (Ali El-Bahnasawy)

There is no simple approach to maintaining sanity in a city like Cairo, but one solution is to just get away and take a break every now and then from this tempestuous madhouse of noise and pollution. The Desert Lodge provides just the sojourn that most of us need to wipe away the grime and fatigue of city life without defaulting to a crowded resort in the Sinai.

The Lodge is located in the gorgeous Dakhla Oasis, 850 kilometers from Cairo — too far to be a convenient drive, but there is a weekly flight from Cairo to El-Kharga Oasis, 200 kilometers away. The road to the hotel crests a hill overlooking the town of Al-Qasr, a rustic, traditional settlement with buildings dating back more than 1,000 years. A chain of colossal mountains draws a half-circle across the horizon to frame the oasis’s green landscape and palm trees. The verdant vegetation against a backdrop of yellow sand and dark red mountains is entrancing, as if painted by one of the great masters. You could spend hours just admiring it.