White Desert National Park, Egypt
While vacationing in Egypt, most people think of a beach holiday in the Red Sea or visiting the pyramids, temples and tombs in the Nile Valley. However, too little attention has been paid to the desert, which covers more than 80% of Egypt’s area.
One of the most breathtaking desert landscapes on earth lies in the western desert between the Bahariya and Farafra oases.
The White Desert is located in the western desert of Egypt, about 30 km northeast of the Farafra oasis, 130 km southwest of the Bahariya oasis and 420 km southwest of Cairo. Traces of culture have been found in two oases, two of which date back to 8000 BC.
After the sea disappeared, the winds formed today’s rocks. Depending on the composition or hardness of rocks and their sequence of layers, bizarre structures arose over time. Such as mushrooms, towers, or fingers. With a little imagination, you can recognize them as dogs, camels, chickens, eagles, mythical figures and other creatures.
But this part of the world is not dry. There are three main sources of water in the White Desert: ʿ Ain Khadra, Ain Serv and Ain Elmakfi.
These water sources provide vegetation with palm trees, tamarisks and acacias. And if you have a little time and luck, you can also watch gazelles, desert foxes, rodents and geckos.
Unique rock formations
A large number of natural stone sculptures have been created here over millennia by the wind. As with a sandblasting fan, and a large temperature difference between day and night.
The various stages of erosion of the rock resemble mushrooms, tents or tables in their predominant white, orange and black colors.
The White Desert, with its white limestone monoliths surrounded by the ubiquitous Sahara sand, looks like a landscape from another world.
Surreal chalk structures could well serve as the backdrop for a sci-fi movie. Here, in a relatively small area, there are various forms of desert landscape: islands or mesas, stone needles, as well as gravel and sand dunes nearby.
The White Desert was declared a nature reserve in 2002. The landscape is characterized by limestone and chalk cliffs. This desert arose from the remains of microscopic sea creatures that lived here about 90 million years ago.
Would you be interested in visiting this desert or spending the night under the open sky?
