Bahariya Oasis
The Nearest Western Desert Oasis To Cairo And The Gateway To The White Desert, With Hot And Cold Springs In The Palm Groves, A Graeco Roman Necropolis Whose Gilded Mummies Were Found In The 1990s, And The Black Basalt Hills That Give The Black Desert Its Name · Bawiti, Giza
Bahariya is the nearest of the Western Desert oases to Cairo - about four hours on a good road - and it is the gateway everyone uses for the White Desert, which means most visitors see it as a car park with palms. It deserves better. The depression is ringed by black basalt hills, the groves around Bawiti are fed by hot and cold springs you can sit in, and in the 1990s a donkey put its foot through the roof of a Graeco-Roman tomb and uncovered a cemetery of gilded mummies, a selection of which are now displayed in the town. There are Twenty-sixth Dynasty tombs, a temple of Alexander, the ruined chapels of Ain al-Muftella, and the English Mountain with an abandoned First World War lookout on top of it. South of town the Black Desert begins: cones of iron-dark scree over pale sand, which is the landscape nobody expects half an hour from a palm grove. Stay a night rather than passing through.
Oasis depression about 360 km south-west of Cairo on the Farafra road, with the Black Desert beginning 20 km south, Bawiti, Giza, Egypt
The oasis is a working town rather than a site. The Golden Mummies hall, the Twenty-sixth Dynasty tombs and the small museum keep daytime hours with tickets and sometimes close for lunch; whether each is open varies, so ask at the ticket office in Bawiti rather than driving to each in turn. Ain al-Muftella's chapels are usually locked and opened by a caretaker. The springs are open at all hours, though the hot ones are best after dark and local custom expects modest dress, especially for women. Desert trips into the Black Desert and on to the White Desert leave in the early afternoon; the same changeable permit and guide requirements apply as for the White Desert itself. Buses from Cairo take four to five hours and continue to Farafra and Dakhla.