A Weekend in Egypt’s White Desert
Camping, yoga, and weird mushroom rocks
In the eight months that I lived in Egypt, the White Desert National Park was one of the most naturally stunning places I managed to visit in my travels around the country.
Its name, as-Sahra’ al-Beyda’ ( الصحراء البيضاء ), meaning the White Desert, comes from its striking white chalk formations, molded into strange mushroom-like shapes by the desert wind and sand. It covers about 300 square kilometers near the center of Egypt in the Sahara Desert’s Farafra Depression.
The White Desert is a protected area of Egypt and foreigners are not allowed to camp there without a local guide. Security is tight along the main road to the desert so cars of foreigners without a guide tend to be turned back at checkpoints.
I was fortunate to have a friend in Cairo, Amer, who leads yoga retreats around Egypt. He was leading a small yoga and camping trip one weekend in January and I jumped at the chance to join in on the adventure. We set off from Cairo for the White Desert early one Friday morning — about ten of us split between two cars. A few hours into the five-hour drive, we made an off-road stop in the Black Desert ( الصحراء السوداء, as-Sahra’ as-Sawda’ ) to stretch our legs and take in the unique scenery.
