Photo : L-BBE — CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
The oases and the Western Desert · Farafra, New Valley
Farafra Oasis
A small town, a palm grove, hot springs, and the road north into the White Desert.
A small town of mud and concrete, Qasr el-Farafra, in the middle of a palm grove, hot springs around it and the sand starting where the gardens end. There are few shops and few hotels, and a 4×4 parked outside just about every guesthouse, because the White Desert begins to the north, under an hour's drive away. A local painter has built a mud-brick museum here, showing his own canvases alongside the objects of oasis life. People come to leave again, or to do nothing at all for two days.
The extra bit
Arrange the desert trip from Farafra rather than from Cairo: the drivers live here, the track is picked up further north, where you leave the tarmac, and you spare yourself the long haul out from the valley.
Know before you go
Services are thin: a pharmacy, a few grocers, no cash machine you can rely on — bring your medicines with you, and enough cash for the stay. Coaches are infrequent and some pass through at night, so a hitch costs you a whole day. The springs sit in people's gardens: ask before you walk in.
