Travel: Dakhla Oasis

We will be starting our journey in the footsteps of Rohlfs this December 2009 from Dakhla Oasis. Below is some information about the place.

Dakhla is among the most remote oases being far from both Cairo and Luxor. To get there from Cairo you drive south over 850km. Yet it retains a charm quite its own that makes journeying there well worth the expenditure in time and effort. You pass from Farafra along one of the loneliest stretches of road in Egypt. Once past the outlying villages of Abu Mingar there is nothing for 200km- just empty road, dunes on the right and the unending escarpment on the left. Anytime you stop- and you should stop because this modern road follows an ancient route through the desert- you will find stone tools scattered close to the road. You can stand by your silent car and hear nothing but the wind for ages, turning over the evidence of ancient man in your hands.

The road from Farafra then passes a few outlying patches of green and then a village. After that one has to wind up and over the great dunes blocking the entrance to the main part of the oasis. These dunes lie between a mountainous outpost- Gebel Edmondstone- named after the Victorian cartographer Archibald Edmondstone , the first European visitor to Dakhla since Roman times. He arrived in 1819. We will pass around Gebel Edmondstone on our way to Siwa through the Great Sand Sea.

But back on the road, once past Gebel Edmondstone you are surrounded by fields alternating with patches of rock and desert. You’ll know you’re in Dakhla because, unlike Farafra, everyone working wears a straw hat against the heat- which makes the place look vaguely Mexican!

Dakhla is considered to be one of the oldest inhabited places in Africa, or rather Mut, its main town is. Mut, which means mother in the Ancient Egyptian tongue, is really the mother of all dwelling places. Houses with organic remains carbon dated to 13,000 years ago have been unearthed there.