Until the year 1969 the road to Bahriyah was only a desert track starting near the Pyramids of Giza following an ancient caravan route. It was considered the most difficult and in the meantime the most dangerous desert road to the oases of the Western Desert because it was not well marked and in many places it crossed sand dunes. Cars frequently lost their way or broke down during the journey, and numerous travelers suffered severely; some indeed lost their lives.
When young people come to ask my opinion before treading the desert, I always ask them why they do not take camels. The answer is invariably the same, their time is limited. But I see something else in their eyes. They think they are talking to an old fashioned man probably half crazy who wants them to endure endless trouble…They are extremely mistaken, because traveling by car sometimes involves more trouble than using a camel.
-Ahmed Fakhry, The Oases of Egypt: Bahriyah and Farafra
The first time I went to Bahriyah was in 1979 by public bus, and I wanted to go again in my own car, so in 1997 my cousin and I set off for Luxor via the Western Oases, heading first to Bahriyah and then Farafra, Dahklah, Khargah, and back to the Nile via a newly opened road just north of Baris village. It was to be a desert adventure.
We rented our car from the Hertz desk in the Inter-Con Hotel and they offered to bring it to us the next morning, so we gave them the address of my cousin’s friend in Garden City where we were staying and waited. The drop off man had us sign more paperwork and wanted to say goodbye but I said, Wait a minute, We don’t know how to drive in Cairo- this made his eyes widen with alarm- so please take us to the edge of town.
Cairo then had over 10 million people and sprawled in all directions, so in fact there is no real “edge of town” except in Giza, where regulations once forbade building anything in the desert behind the pyramids. Now there is 6th October City and much more illegal junk out there, but back then, not as much. So we asked him to take us to the Bahriyah turn off.
City traffic was terrible and there was no way I could have found my way across the Nile bridge to the so-called Pyramids Road, famous then for its belly dancing clubs and now for its downscale tourist hotels that have recently been bombed. Along the way the Hertz man kept looking at his watch but seemed amused by our waylay and his chance to chat with khawajas in our broken Arabic. He knew the English words for things like carburetor and battery cable but not for anything related to the jiggle joints we were passing, so we taught him a few.
All was well until we got to our turn off to Bahriyah. OK, this is good, see you later, we told him. The turn off was a bit out of the way, not the kind of place to catch a cab or bus back to Cairo, so he looked worried. Here are five pounds for a taxi, I said. Mish kitir, wa ma feesh. Not a lot, and there aren’t any, he said. Then grab a camel, I said pointing in the direction of the pyramids stables where tourists always get ripped off. Irkab jamal, and my cousin and I were off to Bahriyah in a fast car on an empty and newly asphalted road.
