EXPLORERS OF THE DESERT

German, Egyptian, British and Italian explorers have all played their part in discovering the secrets of the
Sahara in recent times. One of the most prominent was Gerhard Rohlfs who attempted to reach the Libyan
Oasis of Kufra from Dakhla in 1874.


In the end he turned north to Siwa after receiving a rare two days of rain at a place forever after named Regenfeld- rainfield. After Rohlfs came the aristocratic Egyptian explorer Hassanein Bey,
whose six month journey from Siwa past Uweinat and into the Sudan ranks as one of the greatest desert journeys of all time. Hassanein Bey was not only the first explorer to visit Uweinat, he was also the first to glimpse the Gilf Kebir. At the same time, using half tracked vehicles, the Egyptian Royal, Prince Kemal
Al-Din made the first extensive journeys around the Gilf Kebir plateau, which he named and was the first to map. Tracked vehicles were followed by the motor car. Explorers such as Count Laszlo Almasy of Hungary the real life model for the book and movie character “The English Patient” and Major Ralph Bagnold of Britain drove for thousands of miles in adapted Model A Fords through

country no one had ever seen for many years, and certainly never mapped.


Modern explorers of the desert have tended to relinquish the car for the camel and walking on foot. German Carlo Bergmann and Dutchwoman Arita Baaijens have used camels to track thousand of miles along ancient camel routes that have long been disused.