Travel: Inside the secret (Eastern) desert

 

With photos.

 

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100102/MAGAZINE/701019914/1284

 

Edward Lewis ventures into Egypt’s little-known, largely unexplored Eastern Desert, where impeccably preserved ruins and breathtaking examples of ancient rock art bring to life the fascinating history of this once fertile and thriving region.

 

I am still mystified as to what Officer Mohamed was doing in our vehicle. With his aviator glasses, neatly ironed designer shirt and black briefcase, he didn’t strike me as a man about to embark on a four-day desert excursion. His annoyance at being ordered to escort us was plain to see, as was his sheer bewilderment as to why, when there are numerous resorts along the Red Sea coast, we were turning our backs on the turquoise waters and heading into Egypt’s desolate desert interior.

 

We had picked him up at the secret police headquarters in Marsalam. His arrival was the end of a process that had begun four weeks earlier when we had to submit our passports in order to get security clearance and permission to travel in the southern region of Egypt’s Eastern Desert. With no GPS, satellite phone or firearms, and with no real idea why or where we were going, Mohamed was perhaps the least impressive security guard I had ever encountered. Yet his presence, courtesy of the Egyptian security forces, was obligatory: without him there would be no trip.

 

The insistence that we have an escort, no matter how inept, highlighted an age-old fear of the desert, the unknown and the unexplored. In ancient Egypt the deserts were portrayed as hostile wastelands, places to bury the dead and banish wrongdoers. Fittingly, they were ruled over by Seth, the Egyptian god of chaos and disorder. But far from being a place of fear and trepidation, Egypt’s Eastern Desert is fascinating and contains some of the country’s best-kept secrets.