Desert Oases, Egypt

---

There and deserts and there are deserts', the explorer Ralph Bagnold famously said. But the Western Desert, a vast expanse that starts at the western banks of the Nile and continues well into Libya, is the desert of deserts. Covering a total of 2.8 million sq km and bordered by Libya in the west, Sudan in the south and the Mediterranean in the north, it is a world of desolation and beauty -- and one of the few places in Egypt where you can go for days at a time without seeing a soul. Five isolated but thriving oases dot this otherwise uninhabited expanse: Kharga, Dakhla, Farafra, Bahariyya, and to the north-west of these, Siwa.     (--from Lonely Planet, Egypt).

Desert spring	Dunes in the Sahara	Deir al-Haggar	Local house
The highway in Farafra			... a medieval settlement
Al-Qasr village ...			Greco-Roman foundations
Dakhla children	Al-Qasr children	Women & children	Fond records of Haj pilgrimage
Nasr ad-Din Mosque			Old portal
Local boy			On a dune near Dakhla