Western Desert Oases Travel Video Guide

Western Desert Oases Travel Itinerary

• Maps and flag of Egypt
• Western Desert Oases travel photos
• Western Desert Oases travel forum
• Flights to Western Desert Oases
• Hotels in Western Desert Oases
• Hostels in Western Desert Oases
• Buy the guide book!

For the ancient Egyptians civilization began and ended with the Nile Valley and the Delta, known as the "Black Land" for the colour of its rich alluvial deposits. Beyond lay the "Red Land" or desert, whose significance was either practical or mystical. East of the Nile it held mineral wealth and routes to the Red Sea Coast; west of the river lay the Kingdom of Osiris, Lord of the Dead - the deceased were said to "go west" to meet him. But once it was realized that human settlements existed out there, Egypt's rulers had to reckon with the Western Desert Oases as sources of exotic commodities and potential staging posts for invaders. Though linked to the civilization of the Nile Valley since antiquity, they have always been different - and remain so.

Siwa Oasis , far out near the Libyan border, is the most striking example: its people speak another language and have customs unknown in the rest of Egypt. Its ruined citadels, lush palm groves, limpid pools and golden sand dunes epitomize the allure of the oases.

The four "inner" oases of Bahariya , Farafra , Dakhla and Kharga lie on the " Great Desert Circuit " that begins in Cairo or Assyut - a Long March through the New Valley Governorate, where modernization has affected each oasis to a greater or lesser extent. While Bahariya and Farafra remain basically desert villages, living off their traditional crops of dates and olives, Dakhla and Kharga have full-blown modern towns. The appeal of the latter two is stronger in the journeying - across hundreds of miles of awesome barrenness, most of it gravel pans rather than pure "sand desert".

Much nearer to Cairo

(and suitable for day excursions) are two quasi-oases: the Fayoum and Wadi Natrun. The Fayoum is more akin to the Nile Valley than the Western Desert, with many ancient ruins to prove its importance since the Middle Kingdom. Though a popular holiday spot for Cairenes, it doesn't attract many foreign tourists except for hunters and ornithologists. Wadi Natrun is significant mainly for its Coptic monasteries, which draw hordes of Egyptian pilgrims but comparatively few foreigners.

Your Tips For Western Desert Oases

• Canal Zone Egypt Travel Videos
  Egypt Travel Itinerary
  No longer feted as a triumph of nineteenth-century engineering, nor regarded as the linchpin of Britain's empire, the Suez Canal seems as Joseph Conrad described it: "a dismal but profitable ditch", connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. - Egypt
  

• Sinai Egypt Travel Videos
  Egypt Travel Itinerary
  The Sinai peninsula has been the gateway between Africa and Asia since time immemorial and a battleground for millennia. - Egypt
  

• Red Sea Coast and Eastern Desert Egypt Travel Videos
  Egypt Travel Itinerary
  For 1250 kilometres, from Suez to the Sudanese border, turquoise waves lap rocky headlands and windswept beaches along a coastline separated from the Nile Valley by the arid hills and mountains of the Eastern Desert . - Egypt
  

• Cairo Egypt Travel Videos
  Egypt Travel Itinerary
  The twin streams of Egypt's history converge just below the Delta at Cairo , where the greatest city in the Islamic world sprawls across the Nile towards the Pyramids , those supreme monuments of antiquity. - Egypt
  

• Delta Egypt Travel Videos
  Egypt Travel Itinerary
  While the Nile Valley's place in ancient Egypt remains writ large in extraordinary monuments, the Nile Delta 's role has largely been effaced by time and other factors. - Egypt
  

• Nile Valley Egypt Travel Videos
  Egypt Travel Itinerary
  Egypt has been called the gift of the Nile, for without the river it could not exist as a fertile, populous country, let alone have sustained a great civilization five thousand years ago. - Egypt
  

• Mediterranean Coast Egypt Travel Videos
  Egypt Travel Itinerary
  For ancient Egyptians, the Mediterranean coast marked the edge of the "Great Green", the measureless sea that formed the limits of the known world. - Egypt
  

• Western Desert Oases Egypt Travel Videos
  Egypt Travel Itinerary
  For the ancient Egyptians civilization began and ended with the Nile Valley and the Delta, known as the "Black Land" for the colour of its rich alluvial deposits. - Egypt