desert

Egyptian desert. At first the very lack of  anything apparent causes one to focus and open up. In our busy modern lives we close ourselves off to survive, but in the desert we return to our primeval
state where every rock, flower and flying bird is of vital interest. Then, after a while, you begin to see that desert is not a dead world, an empty world at all- it is overflowing with things to find and look at: fossils, flint scrapers, lizards, beetles, diminutive fennec foxes with their huge ears, falcons, petrified wood,stone axes and spear heads left behind from when the entire desert was a wetter savannah; grinding stones, ostrich egg shells, 5000 year old rock art paintings and carvings, old camel route markers, Romanpottery, acacia trees clinging to life, ochre deposits, pre-historic shark’s
remains- the list goes on- the desert is a place of marvels just waiting to be found.


Egypt is 95% desert. Yet for much of its history Egypt has been the
story of the fertile 5% that lies alongside the river Nile. More and more, though, people are beginning to value the overlooked
desert, this great wilderness which is a place of incredible
beauty and wild solitude.